Shocking New Poll: Just 1 in 5 Voters Trust the Supreme Court That Trump Built to Resolve Trump Election Disputes Fairly
A new Pew survey suggests sagging confidence in an institution controlled by Republicans that has protected the Republican presidential nominee at every turn.
Just one in five voters are highly confident that the Supreme Court will be “politically neutral” if asked to resolve legal challenges to the 2024 presidential election between Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Donald Trump, the Republican nominee who owes both his very presence on the ballot and his still-not-yet-adjudicated criminal liability for fomenting a violent coup to recent decisions issued by the Supreme Court.
These are the results of a new Pew survey, which found that even among Trump supporters, just 34 percent believe that a Court whose members have at every opportunity insulated Trump from facing consequences for his various crimes is capable of adjudicating election disputes fairly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harris supporters are even more skeptical of the nonpartisan bona fides of a Court controlled by six conservative justices, three of whom Trump appointed himself, and three of whom compensate for their appointments by previous, lesser Republican presidents by taking every opportunity to polish his boots with their tongues in the pages of the Supreme Court reporter.
It is difficult to say why Americans do not trust an institution that has permitted an insurrectionist to run for President of the United States despite an explicit clause in the Constitution that forbids insurrectionists from doing so, and to that end invented an ahistorical, extraconstitutional doctrine of presidential immunity for presidents whose agendas the justices personally support. The lack of confidence in a high court that includes at least one justice who displayed an election-truther flag over his home while deciding cases about the results of that election is dismaying, and does not bode well for the future of a Court so committed to impartiality that it etched its EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW pledge on its west-facing facade for everyone to see.
I suppose it will be up to Chief Justice John Roberts, a lifelong Republican who personally fought to ensure the de facto exoneration of the Republican nominee so that he could run for office again, to restore the Court’s sagging legitimacy by conducting himself in an unimpeachably forthright manner this fall. A nation waits with bated breath.
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Speaking of judges and con men playing con games, I say there ought to be a law. There ought to be a federal law that requires every sitting judge (state and federal) and every judicial nominee (state and federal) to state what they think (in writing, at least five pages, typed, double spaced) the implications are of principles such as those stated in the following paragraphs. Already, our Constitution (Article VI) commands that all government employees must promise to "to support" our "Constitution." We should find out (in advance) a little more about what our purported public servants actually think those words mean (to them and to us).
The “animating principle” of our original Constitution was “popular sovereignty.” Ariz. State Legis. v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm’n, 576 U.S. 787, 813 (2015); id. at 837 (Roberts, C.J., Scalia, Thomas, Alito, JJ., dissenting). Our “Constitution begins with the principle that sovereignty rests with the people.” Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 759 (1999). It began by expressly emphasizing that “the people” did “ordain and establish the Constitution.” Id. (quoting U.S. Const., Preamble).
The people are “sovereign” and the “original fountain of all legitimate authority.” Gamble v. United States, 587 U.S. 678, 728 (2019) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (quoting Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 22). In The Federalist No. 84 Hamilton elaborated on the meaning of all the foregoing:
[Regarding rights] the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations [of rights]. “WE, THE PEOPLE [ ] to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves [ ], do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution [ ].” Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of [any] aphorisms [in any] bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.
Hamilton (and Madison and James Wilson) highlighted how our rights and our liberty reflect and flow from our political sovereignty (over each other and our public servants) and our personal sovereignty (each person over herself or himself). We the People should know before anyone obtains the power to judge us how they see our sovereignty. We should not be blindsided by the kind of blatant deceit that the SCOTUS majority dished up in Dobbs.
Confidence is an interesting word. Confidence is an essential ingredient of a scam or a fraud. Confidence is so essential to con men playing con games that it's part of those names: confidence man and confidence game. I was reminded of confidence men playing confidence games when I read Chief Justice Roberts emphasize the importance of (mere) confidence, perception, appearances and assurances.
In 2015 in Williams-Yulee v. Fla. Bar, 575 U.S. 433 (2015), Chief Justice Roberts (writing for the majority of SCOTUS justices) emphasized that “safeguarding” the “confidence” of us common folk “in the fairness and integrity” of “judges” is a “vital state interest.” Emphasizing “the appearance of justice,” they contended that the “perception of judicial integrity” is “a state interest of the highest order.” So they emphasized that “preserving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary” is a “compelling interest.” A government “may assure its people” (preferably, it would actually ensure) “that judges will apply the law without fear or favor.”
In that same opinion, Chief Justice Roberts plainly misrepresented some very plain text of our Constitution and its very plain meaning. And Chief Justice Roberts utterly deceitfully blamed Alexander Hamilton for his own falsehood. Citing The Federalist No. 78, Chief Justice Roberts misrepresented that “Hamilton believed” that our Constitution provided for “appointing judges to positions with life tenure.”
Regarding that very point (at that very place in The Federalist No. 78), Hamilton clearly emphasized "good behavior," not life tenure. “GOOD BEHAVIOR" is "the tenure” of “judicial offices” and making tenure depend on anything else “would have been inexcusably defective.” Absolutely “all judges” appointed to federal courts “are to hold their offices” only “DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR.” “The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.”
The employment of federal judges very clearly does not depend primarily on biology. It expressly depends primarily on behavior. This was a hugely important point to people who fought an entire war to ensure that we have no "Title of Nobility" in any American government (which Article I Sections 9 and 10 expressly precluded).
Ours is “a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office.” The Federalist No. 70 (Hamilton). Having “courts composed of judges holding their offices” only “during good behavior” is a “powerful means” for ensuring “the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.” The Federalist No. 9 (Hamilton). “The tenure by which the judges are to hold their places, is, as it unquestionably ought to be, that of good behavior.” The Federalist No. 39 (James Madison). Only federal “judges” who “behave properly, will be secured in their places for life.” The Federalist No. 79 (Hamilton).
Even in The Federalist No. 78, alone (and even more clearly in many other parts of The Federalist Papers), Hamilton clearly did not believe that ANY public servant did or should have any right to life tenure or employment. Multiple parts of The Federalist Papers address "good behavior" (and bad behavior) of public servants. Hamilton even explicitly emphasized the danger of "judicial despotism" (as Chief Justice Roberts, himself, accentuated only two years earlier in Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 126-127 (2013) (dissenting opinion)). And even if Hamilton did believe any such absurdity (as Chief Justice Roberts misrepresented), our Constitution clearly precluded it.
Article III emphatically states that federal judges may "hold their Offices" only "during good Behaviour." Hamilton in The Federalist No. 78 had a lot to say (directly and indirectly) about the "good behavior" (and the bad behavior) of our public servants. Article II emphasized that "all civil Officers of the United States" (including all federal judges) "SHALL be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of" any "high Crimes" or "Misdemeanors." The Fourteenth Amendment (Section 3) clarified that included for having "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S. or having "given aid or comfort to" our "enemies." I think that the SCOTUS majority's opinion in the two Trump decisions this years qualifies.