Supreme Court justices are signaling that everyone is getting along just fine in the new term despite Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s brutal and partisan confirmation battle, and are calling for others to open themselves up to different points of view.
“We make progress by listening to each other, and by listening to each other across every kind of divide, divides of ideology, of methodology or in the case of political institutions, politics,” Justice Elena Kagan said during an event at Georgetown University’s law school Wednesday. “Echo chambers are pretty boring places.”
Just down the road, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered similar advice Wednesday while speaking at the federal courthouse in the nation’s capital.
“As long as we live and listen, we can learn,” Ginsburg said, when asked whether she thinks her fellow justices are open to persuasion.
The messages from the justices came during the court’s two-week recess, during which they fanned out across the country delivering speeches and participating in question-and-answer sessions.
While their appearances vary in theme, the justices have all spread similar messages, stressing that the Supreme Court is independent of the other political branches and praising the collegiality they have.
“We do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle, we do not caucus in separate rooms, we do not serve one party or one interest. We serve one nation,” Chief Justice John Roberts said during remarks at the University of Minnesota Law School last week, echoing Kavanaugh’s comments at the White House after his confirmation. “I want to assure all of you that we will continue to do that to the best of our abilities whether times are calm or contentious.”
Roberts opened his address at the event by noting “the contentious events in Washington in recent weeks,” a reference to Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.
“I have great respect for our public officials. After all, they speak for the people, and that commands a certain degree of humility from those of us in the judicial branch who do not,” the chief justice said. “We do not speak for the people, but we speak for the Constitution. Our role is very clear: We are to interpret the Constitution and laws of the United States and ensure that the political branches act within them. That job obviously requires independence from the political branches.”
Kavanaugh was nominated to the court to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy in July. But his confirmation fight, considered to be one of the most contentious over a vacant seat, has cast a political shadow across the Supreme Court.
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During the course of his nomination process, the new justice was accused by three women of sexual misconduct, though Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegations.
The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh 50-48 on Oct. 6, but his confirmation fueled an already raging fire.
On Kavanaugh’s first day on the job days after the Senate’s vote, protesters gathered on the sidewalk in front of 1 First St. Some Democrats also vowed to open an investigation into the allegations against the justice if they take control of the House after the Nov. 6 midterms.
But inside the Supreme Court, the justices proceeded with business as usual, with the exception of a welcome message delivered by Roberts to Kavanaugh when the justices took their seats.
Kavanaugh heard oral arguments in four cases during his first week on the job, at the end of which the court recessed for two weeks. The justices will hear their next oral argument Oct. 29.
On the day before Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate, Kagan, appearing alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor at Princeton University, spoke to the importance of the Supreme Court’s independence.
“Part of the court’s strength and part of the court’s legitimacy depends on people not seeing the court in the way that people see the rest of the governing structures of this country right now,” she said at the time. “In other words, people thinking of the court as not politically divided in the same way, as not an extension of politics, but instead somehow above the fray.”
Kagan stressed it’s “incredibly important” for the court to protect its “reputation of being fair, of being impartial, of being neutral, and not simply an extension of the terribly political process and environment that we live in.”
Sotomayor, too, spoke of the need to abandon the political rancor in exchange for civility.
“We have to rise above the partisanship in our personal relationships,” she said during the event at Princeton. “We have to treat each other with respect and dignity and with a sense of amicability that the rest of the world doesn’t often share.”
Back in Washington on Wednesday, Ginsburg highlighted the collegiality on the court.
Collegiality, she said, “means understanding the institution you work for is more important than the egos of the individuals.”
