Ideally, the US Supreme Court is meant to be above politics, but its latest term will be remembered for crucial rulings with an outsize impact on the 2024 presidential election.
Two years after overturning the constitutional right to abortion, conservatives on the top court once again used their 6-3 majority to push laws further to the right.
The term featured rulings dismantling the power of federal agencies, weakening environmental protections and striking down a ban on “bump stocks” — devices which allow semi-automatic rifles to fire like machine guns.
Looming over the session, however, was the White House race and Donald Trump.
In March, the justices unanimously dismissed a Colorado state court ruling that would have barred Trump from the ballot for engaging in an insurrection — the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by supporters fueled by his election lies.
The final opinion of the term, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, was even more consequential and controversial: a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines that a former president has broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
The decision came four months ahead of the presidential election and ensured that Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the last election would not be held before the November vote — if ever.
It inspired a blistering dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three liberals on the court, who said “in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
Richard Hasen, a law professor at UCLA, said the justices ignored the current threat posed by Trump and his election subversion efforts while worrying about abstract future threats to democracy.
“Not only did (Trump) not face any legal consequences yet for these actions, but he is the front-runner to be president again, now armed with a new Supreme Court opinion that gives him vastly expanded powers that he would no doubt use if he is put back in office,” Hasen said in an analysis in Slate.
‘Hotly political court’
Steven Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said conservatives on the court have been emboldened by their majority “to push through constitutional and statutory changes that have long been on their wish list.”
“But this ruling, this one is really truly breathtaking,” Schwinn said of the immunity opinion. “That it came down on purely partisan lines just underscores… that this is a hotly political court.”
Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and legal analyst, said the Supreme Court “already had a major perception problem before this term.”
“But I think with these rulings, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they are engaging in outcome-based legal reasoning.”
Jonathan Turley, a conservative legal scholar at George Washington University, pushed back against criticism of the immunity ruling.
“The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct,” Turley said.
“Scholars have long disagreed where to draw the line on presidential immunity,” he said in a New York Post commentary. “The court adopted a middle approach that rejected extreme arguments on both sides.”
Recusal rejected
The term, which began in October, was also marked by calls for two conservative justices who have been the targets of ethics allegations — Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — to recuse themselves from the election-related cases.
A number of Democratic lawmakers had called for Alito’s recusal after flags linked to Trump’s false election fraud claims were flown outside his home and vacation property.
Thomas, the longest-serving justice on the court, ignored calls to step aside on grounds that his wife took part in the drive to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 vote.
Public approval of the court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, has been sliding for years.
A Quinnipiac poll conducted ahead of the immunity decision found that voters disapproved of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job by 54 percent to 37 percent.
The poll revealed a sharp political divide, with 84 percent of Democrats disapproving of the court’s job performance, compared to just 27 percent of Republicans.
A majority of voters — 70 percent — supported doing away with the life-time appointments of Supreme Court justices.
