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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson doubled down on her criticism of her colleagues for the Supreme Court’s handling of a Louisiana gerrymandering case on Monday.
Jackson made the comments during an interview hosted by the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C., on Monday night. She reiterated her view that the Court had been too hasty in deciding the case, and criticized the Court’s latest move to send a similar redistricting case in Mississippi back to lower courts.
“Courts are apolitical, not supposed to be issuing rulings that are in the political realm,” Jackson said Monday. “We have to be scrupulous about sticking to the principles and the rules that we apply in every case and not look as though we’re doing something different in this kind of context.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel repeatedly asked Jackson about the Court’s May 4 decision in the Louisiana case, as well as its later decision to forego its typical month-long waiting period before finalizing the ruling.
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“I think we have to be very constrained,” she said. “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.”
Jackson did not make overt criticisms of her fellow justices, but she did suggest the Court’s latest action contributes to a perception that the Court was no longer impartial.
“[There are] real world consequences that are occurring, and no one really has a clear sense of why it’s happening or what the Court’s reasoning is. So I just think we can and should be better,” she said.
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“It is so important for the public to perceive us as neutral, nonpartisan,” she added. “Public confidence is really all the judiciary has. That’s our currency.”
Louisiana v. Callais centered on whether Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which had added a second majority-Black district, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
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Though the justices acknowledged that compliance with the Voting Rights Act can be considered by states as a compelling interest in redistricting, they said that it did not require Louisiana to add the creation of a second majority Black district, siding with a lower court that had also blocked the state’s use of the map.
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The Supreme Court’s ruling in that case could trigger a new wave of legal challenges over congressional boundaries and make it harder for plaintiffs to challenge the maps in question, as it requires them to prove a racially discriminatory motive.
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