For the past week, headline news has focused almost exclusively on the scenes of desperation and destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Ian. So most of us missed taking note of last Friday's investiture of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. She was sworn in last June so this was a formality, but it still carried the weight of history and the court was filled with political and judicial luminaries, including President Biden and Vice President Harris. It was by all accounts a moving ceremony. But considering all the turbulence on the Supreme Court right now, I have to wonder if Jackson might be having second thoughts.
Today is the first Monday in October, the first day of the new Supreme Court term — and the court is in crisis. According to the Gallup poll, its public approval ratings have never been lower, with 58% of Americans disapproving of how this court is handling its job. A good part of that can be attributed to the Dobbs decision overturning the right to abortion, which had been effectively enshrined in the Constitution for 50 years. That it came fast on the heels of two underhanded end-runs by the Republican-controlled Senate — blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016, and then jamming through Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 — made it all the more rank. The court's right-wing majority couldn't even wait another year or two, just for appearance's sake.
