Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has taken a fresh swipe at her conservative colleagues as the simmering feud tearing apart the Supreme Court erupts into open view. Jackson warned the court risked looking partisan after a voting rights ruling handed Louisiana Republicans the power to redraw the congressional map and dismantle a majority-black district before the November midterms.
Jackson's Call for Neutrality
'It is so important for the public to perceive us as neutral, nonpartisan,' Jackson told the American Law Institute in Washington, DC, on Monday. 'We know that public confidence is really all the judiciary has.' 'It's incumbent upon us to do things, to act in ways that shore up public confidence,' Jackson said.
It marked the latest blow in a deepening rift among the nine justices, exposed just as they fan out across the country for the round of public appearances that traditionally follows the close of oral arguments. Amid the fallout from the Louisiana ruling, several justices have used those stops to defend the court against its critics.
Conservative Justices Defend the Court
Chief Justice John Roberts told a judicial conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania, that the court sometimes has no choice but to rule against the public mood. 'We're not simply part of the political process, and there's a reason for that, and I'm not sure people grasp that as much as is appropriate,' Roberts said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett struck a similar note at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. 'I think the casual reader about the Supreme Court or its decisions might have the impression we're just kind of up there, politicians in robes,' Barrett said. 'That's not how the court functions.' Barrett also conceded the perception of a politicized court troubled her. 'Yes, it bothers me because it's not accurate,' she said.
The Voting Rights Decision
At the center of recent disputes is the court's 6-3 decision last month sharply curbing the Voting Rights Act, which the justices then allowed to take effect early, clearing Louisiana Republicans to impose a new congressional map before November. The court normally holds a ruling for 32 days so the losing side can seek a rehearing, but the conservatives waived that guideline, citing early voting already underway in Louisiana. Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent from speeding up the process.
Explaining her position at the Law Institute on Monday, Jackson argued that the majority should have left the standard procedure alone. 'My view was it would be a more neutral way to handle the matter to just stick with the rule that we always apply in situations like this,' she said.
Sharp Exchanges
Jackson in her dissent had argued that the move compromised the appearance of neutrality, writing that it was 'tantamount to an approval of Louisiana's rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map.' The majority, she added, had 'dive[d] into the fray' in a way that was 'unwarranted and unwise.'
Justice Samuel Alito countered that it was common sense to send the case back to the lower court immediately once the underlying constitutional question, decided 6-3 last week in Louisiana v. Callais, had been settled in Louisiana's favor. In a concurrence joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, Alito wrote that 'the dissent in this suit levels charges that cannot go unanswered.' He dismissed Jackson's two stated reasons for keeping to the 32-day waiting period, writing: 'One is trivial at best, and the other is baseless and insulting.'
Alito issued a ferocious rebuttal to Jackson's accusation that the majority had acted in an 'unprincipled' fashion, calling it 'a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.' And in an acerbic barb, he wrote: 'The dissent accuses the Court of 'unshackl[ing]' itself from 'constraints.' It is the dissent's rhetoric that lacks restraint.'
Jackson's Solo Dissents
Jackson, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, has emerged as the court's most strident solo dissenter, repeatedly going it alone to torch majority rulings that hand wins to Donald Trump and the GOP. In a solo dissent in Trump v. United States in July 2024, the presidential-immunity case, Jackson fumed that the majority had lit 'a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance.' Months later, dissenting as the court reined in nationwide injunctions in Trump v. Casa, she branded the ruling 'profoundly dangerous' and warned it enabled 'our collective demise.'
That dissent drew a stinging put-down from Justice Coney Barrett, who wrote that Jackson's argument was 'at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.' The friction also surfaced in June 2025, when Jackson accused the conservative majority of bending to 'moneyed interests.' In a 7-2 ruling favoring fuel producers in an environmental case, she argued that the conservative majority is 'overly sympathetic to corporate interests.' Neither Justice Sonia Sotomayor nor Justice Elena Kagan signed on to her specific statement regarding corporate favoritism. The liberal justices have increasingly left Jackson to go it alone, signaling their discomfort with her heated rhetoric which tends toward personal criticism.
