Justice Kagan Criticizes Supreme Court Rulings on Voting and Campaign Finance

Shan Thew/Pool via Reuters Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has launched a scathing attack on some of the conservative-majority court’s decisions, calling them detrimental to the country’s democracy just weeks before the crucial midterm elections.

Speaking at an event at Catholic University’s law school in Washington, D.C., the liberal justice singled out rulings that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act .

She said those relating to racial discrimination during redistricting, the loosening of campaign finance restrictions, and the barring of courts from intervening in partisan gerrymandering were particularly damaging.

Kagan, nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, dissented from the court’s rulings in each case.

“In all these areas, the court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works,” Kagan said on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

She added that this had resulted in “a democracy that does not work as well as it should.” Kagan said a 2019 decision removing federal courts from oversight of partisan gerrymandering had led both parties into a “race to the bottom” as they redrew maps to benefit Democrats or Republicans in ways that “is very destructive of our democracy.” When SCOTUS gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act to prevent racial discrimination in voting in April, Kagan said she felt her colleagues had failed to grasp how damaging the decision would be, as Black lawmakers could be forced out through redrawn maps.

“The court kind of said, ‘Oh well,’” Kagan said, according to The Washington Post.

Kagan also blasted a June SCOTUS decision on campaign finance which sided with congressional Republicans to abolish limits on how political parties can coordinate directly with candidates.

“The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare,” she said.

“And they’re right.” Kagan also spoke out against her conservative colleagues’ defense of originalism, the theory that the Constitution should be interpreted based on the original public meaning of its text at the time of adoption.

“They were writing the Constitution for the ages.

They were writing the Constitution, knowing that there would be change in the world,” she said, adding that support for originalism “is kind of misconceived, and it’s not a very good match with the Constitution we have.” Despite her takedown of the nation’s highest court, Kagan said SCOTUS has been getting a “bum rap” for its numerous rulings that have greatly benefited Donald Trump.