Liberals as a whole have had a tough 2025 at the Supreme Court, but I think I’m safe in saying that none have had it quite as bad as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Between citing a hypothetical Martian as an argument to allow district judges to keep issuing universal injunctions and completely ignoring what a case was about when deciding American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump, even the court’s left flank has begun criticizing her — with Justice Sonia Sotomayor going as far as to subtly admonish her in the AFGE case by noting that her opinion didn’t confine itself to, and in fact had little to with, the legal matter being decided.
In other words, it’s hard to find defenders for Jackson these days. Thankfully, there’s always Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a man who, if double standards weren’t a thing, would possess zero standards.
Whitehouse is one of the leftmost members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one who hasn’t necessarily backed court-packing explicitly but has given his tacit approval when others back it.
When Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court in an election year by a Republican president with a Republican majority in the Senate willing to confirm her, Whitehouse said that his GOP colleagues’ credibility “will die in this room and on that Senate floor if you continue.” When Merrick Garland was nominated to the Supreme Court in an election year by a Democratic president with a Republican Senate that had no intention of voting for his confirmation, he implored his “Republican colleagues” to show “Mr. Garland the respect he deserves and act on his nomination.”
In other words, we’re dealing with, if not a radical leftist, at least a radical utilitarian here. And, in Whitehouse’s world, Jackson’s absurd opinions and dissents from the high bench have some utility.
For those of you just catching up, here’s specifically what he’s defending, which is pretty indefensible:
An underappreciated passage of Justice Jackson’s dissent in CASA is her appeal to the authority of a fictional space alien. pic.twitter.com/IEzqHgIn7j
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) June 28, 2025
Is Ketanji Brown Jackson the most qualified person Joe Biden could have picked for the Supreme Court?
“Wait for it”!
In a literal Supreme Court opinion!
RETWEET if you stand with Ketanji Brown Jackson! pic.twitter.com/gCVz3km9c0
— Jeremy Stamper 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇬🇧🇨🇦 (@jeremymstamper) June 28, 2025
In which Sotomayor sides with the conservatives and reminds Jackson that what Jackson is talking about isn’t before the Court at the moment https://t.co/jqe7mFLTHn pic.twitter.com/DUzRLUECPE
— Sunny (@sunnyright) July 8, 2025
In a Wednesday thread on X longer than many Ernest Hemingway short stories, Whitehouse noted that “some of her dissents are so pointed Kagan and Sotomayor don’t even join them” and “the far right is out for her, and even Republican justices are getting snarky.”
That should be a bad thing in an institution that prizes “collegiality,” as Whitehouse noted.
One of the internal traditions of the Court is “collegiality.” First, you’re there for life, so you may as well get along.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
Ah, but there’s a catch: “But what if we’re not in ordinary times?” he wrote. “What if we are in a time when a billionaire-funded scheme has spent decades trying to pack the Court with billionaire-agreeable justices, so as to ‘capture’ the Court in the sense of ‘regulatory capture’ or ‘agency capture’ — and what if the billionaires have finally succeeded?”
What if we are in a time when a billionaire-funded scheme has spent decades trying to pack the Court with billionaire-agreeable justices, so as to “capture” the Court in the sense of “regulatory capture” or “agency capture” — and what if the billionaires have finally succeeded?
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
“What if we are in a time when favored parties and litigants win victories with statistically astounding regularity? And justices are feted at organizational fund-raising dinners where those statistically-astounding winners convene?” he continued. “What if we are in a time when novel judicial doctrines, reverse-engineered for happy results for certain special interests, are grown and fertilized in special-interest-funded legal hothouses and then make their way through the Court to become the law of the land?”
What if we are in a time when novel judicial doctrines, reverse-engineered for happy results for certain special interests, are grown and fertilized in special-interest-funded legal hothouses and then make their way through the Court to become the law of the land?
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
This goes on. There are a bunch of “what if” questions that are disappointingly stupid and far-fetched, especially coming from a longstanding member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; I’m halfway surprised that that Whitehouse didn’t rhetorically ask, “What if you need to widdle and can’t find a bathroom because Republicans outlawed them, since they hate transgender people? What if Elon Musk forces you to ingest ketamine and then shoots you into space, and he’s legally allowed to do it because the Trump administration replaced the Bill of Rights with a ‘Funky Winkerbean’ comic strip?”
I mean, if you’re making serially ridiculous points, at least entertain me.
Anyhow, this finally gets to a point, which is that Jackson is jettisoning “collegiality” because there’s too much “mischief happening in plain view in the courthouse.”
“Justice Jackson has begun looking at patterns, and noticing what types of parties tend to win, and which tend to lose. She has noticed procedural discrepancies,” he said.
“She has begun looking at interests, and motives, and connections. She’s begun to point behind the curtain at what ‘collegiality’ obscures.”
She has begun looking at interests, and motives, and connections. She’s begun to point behind the curtain at what “collegiality” obscures.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
Apparently, these connections involve … wait for it … disappointing hypothetical Martians with degrees in constitutional law.
There’s somehow more: “If the Emperor has no clothes, and chooses to walk down the Main Street of the city, it may very well be indecorous to call him out as buck naked. But the real wrong in that scenario is in the naked parade down Main Street, not in the call that points the nakedness out,” Whitehouse continued. “The far right is undeniably twitchy, because the participants know the Scheme better than anyone. The points Jackson has made so far about patterns and preferences and predisposition likely only touch the surface of a far deeper problem.”
The far right is undeniably twitchy, because the participants know the Scheme better than anyone. The points Jackson has made so far about patterns and preferences and predisposition likely only touch the surface of a far deeper problem.
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
“The Schemers have much more to fear, and they know it,” Whitehouse said in the last post in the lengthy thread.
The Schemers have much more to fear, and they know it.
As best I can tell, KBJ is being true to herself, true to her oath, and true to her native land.
That’s my take, anyway.
(P.S. Harlan was alone in dissent, too, and that aged well.)
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 9, 2025
What — she’s going to call out how we’re disappointing Venusians arriving here from another planet next? “The Schemers” are going to be cooked if that happens.
All kidding aside, Whitehouse is saying the quiet part aloud, albeit slightly disguised. For the left, the federal judiciary — especially the Supreme Court — functioned as another organ of the legislative branch for far too long. Americans got sick of it and elected presidents who nominated judges who interpret the Constitution as it was written and politicians who would confirm them. Suddenly, the independence of the judiciary is being questioned by Whitehouse and his ilk, precisely because it’s actually independent of the Democratic Party now.
Justice Jackson embodies the current Democratic ideal, especially as the party has drifted so far left — in fact, so much so that Justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, otherwise reliably liberal, are pushing back on her lack of restraint.
As for her opinions, they’ve gotten to the point where they’re hysterical: In between sounding like a snarky teen and appealing to the authority of an imaginary E.T., she’s ignored the law so completely that even Sonia Sotomayor has to check her.
But to Whitehouse, this all sounds like his beau ideal of a Supreme Court justice. For those of you who needed another reason to keep these folks away from deciding who interprets the Constitution from the nation’s highest bench, this should more than suffice.
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