Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Supreme Court of the United States risks being viewed as political following a major voting rights decision that weakened portions of the Voting Rights Act and reshaped congressional representation in Louisiana.
Speaking Monday at an event hosted by the American Law Institute in Washington, Jackson emphasized the importance of maintaining public confidence in the judiciary, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
“Public confidence is really all the judiciary has,” Jackson said during the discussion, according to the AP. She added that courts must operate in ways that reinforce trust and demonstrate independence from politics.
Jackson’s comments come weeks after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in a Louisiana redistricting case involving a majority-Black congressional district. The decision allowed the state to quickly implement revised congressional maps after the court struck down a district previously created to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Jackson issued a solo dissent in the case, criticizing the timing of the court’s intervention and arguing that changing district maps after early voting had already begun created confusion and instability in the election process.
Public trust in the Supreme Court has declined in recent years amid a series of high-profile rulings on issues including abortion, affirmative action and voting rights. Chief Justice John Roberts has previously pushed back against suggestions that the court operates as a political institution, calling that perception a misunderstanding of the judicial system.
Jackson, who joined the Supreme Court in 2022 as the first Black woman to serve on the bench, has increasingly emerged as one of the court’s most outspoken liberal voices in major cases involving race, democracy and civil rights.
