![]() ![]() Those shifts were perhaps best exemplified by the June 2022 decision overturning Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that created federal protections for abortion.Īnother ruling that year upended the federal government’s ability to restrict greenhouse gases. Over the last two years, the conservative supermajority has overseen “multiple, rapid” shifts in the law that appear “ideologically driven”. To be sure, Keck said, the “dominant theme” of the court’s recent term is that the bench remains staunchly conservative. The trio stands in contrast with their fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who are “very firmly convinced of the rightness of their views and they’re very impatient to impose those views”, Keck said. As chief justice, Roberts “clearly wants to be a little more cautious and incremental” to maintain the court’s reputation among the public. That’s particularly true in the case of Roberts, Keck added. “It’s not that are less conservative, but it’s that they are tempering the sort of conservative-movement demands with other considerations,” Keck told Al Jazeera. ![]() Justice Amy Coney Barrett has also shown a willingness to break ideological lines. Keck pointed to one surprise decision - Allen v Milligan - that saw Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh side with their liberal colleagues to knock down racially gerrymandered voting districts in Alabama. Nevertheless, some less-expected decisions indicate “key lines of division” among the court’s conservative justices, according to Thomas Keck, a professor of political science at Syracuse University. “And I’m not sure that anything that happened in this term is really going to kind of shore up that respect.” “We’ve really seen a pretty dramatic erosion in the respect that the court enjoys among the American people,” Douglas told Al Jazeera. That rightward trend - mixed with recent ethics concerns about justices receiving luxury travel from donors - is unlikely to improve tanking public opinion about the court, according to Lawrence Douglas, a professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought at Amherst College. It also nixed President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, stymying one of the Democrat’s signature policy proposals. In another, it ended affirmative action at colleges and universities. ![]() In one case, it sided with a website designer who refused services to same-sex couples. In the course of days this past June, the court delivered a wide range of conservative rulings. What was not surprising, analysts told Al Jazeera, is that the court’s decisions skewed towards the right - a reflection of the six-to-three conservative majority that took shape under former President Donald Trump. The United States Supreme Court last week ended its term with a series of rapid-fire decisions that provoked outrage and surprise, particularly on the political left. ![]()
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