While the Supreme Court’s 2024 term has come to an end, there’s one opinion that’s still generating widespread conversation within America’s political discourse.
In the high court’s Trump v. CASA decision nuking lower courts’ abuse of universal injunctions, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored what can best be described as an unhinged judicial temper tantrum. In a roughly 20-page dissent, the Biden appointee espoused furious indignation at the majority’s refusal to allow rogue district judges to unilaterally undermine the powers of the executive branch — a position which Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett characterized as “a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.”
While Jackson’s left-wing advocacy on the high court is nothing new, her dissent in the case represents just how low the junior justice is willing to sink to use her position to advance an ideology wholly antithetical to America’s constitutional order.
At the outset of her opinion, Jackson attempts to ominously portray the Court’s decision to kneecap the judicial coup seeking to nullify the will of 2024 election voters as an “existential threat to the rule of law.” Under the majority’s adopted standard, she argues, the executive will now be permitted to run wild and violate Americans’ protected liberties with virtually no pushback or consequences.
“When the Government says ‘do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,’ what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution — please allow this,” Jackson wrote. “With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government’s wish.”
But accepting Jackson’s premise requires dismissing a key aspect of America’s constitutional framework. That is, the various checks and balances developed by the founders that grants each branch powers to “check” one another and ensure uniform compliance with the Constitution.
The system that Jackson poses in her dissent could not be further from this dynamic. In fact, as described by Barrett, the system the junior justice is advocating for is one that elevates an “imperial Judiciary” — in which unelected lawyers in black robes have the final say on matters of law and public policy in America.
The Biden appointee effectively endorsed such a worldview when she wrote, “Stated simply, what it means to have a system of government that is bounded by law is that everyone is constrained by the law, no exceptions. And for that to actually happen, courts must have the power to order everyone (including the Executive) to follow the law — full stop” [emphasis added].
Putting aside the teenage, “girl boss”-style phrasing, consider the egregiousness of what Jackson is saying. In essence, she’s suggesting that the judiciary possesses unlimited power to order the other branches to adhere to its commands — all of which are based upon how each judge in any given court interprets “the law.”
That is not the system of government the framers envisioned. It’s a despotic one where the branch that was seen as the least dangerous now reigns supreme over the others.
It’s no wonder that with insane logic like this, the majority lambasted Jackson’s dissent as “a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to [existing statute and Court precedent] nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.”
The saddest part about this tirade is that it’s not coming from some random political commentator in the pages of a legacy media outlet, but from a sitting, life-tenured justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. One who uses social media-esque rhetoric like “full stop” and “wait for it” in an official court ruling, no less.
But the reality is that for all the fallacies and melodramatic phrases in her opinion, Jackson is simply fulfilling the job she was appointed to do: advance leftist ideology from the bench.
She may land on the right side of a case here and there, but when it comes to most major issues implicating the nation, she will likely go where her left-wing orthodoxy leads her — away from the Constitution and what it requires.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
