O'Connor Faults Supreme Court Critics with a 'Lack of Understanding'

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor called the heated criticism of the Court over the recent decisions involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act "unfortunate," telling a Senate committee today that it shows a need for more civics education.

O'Connor testified that comments labeling Chief Justice John Roberts a "traitor" or that he betrayed former president George W. Bush "demonstrate only too well the lack of understanding some of our citizens have about the role of the judicial branch."

O'Connor appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss how to ensure judicial independence through education, speaking about her support of iCivics, a nonprofit group she founded to teach students through free games about how government works and how they can become involved.

She advocated again today for taking politics out of the judicial branch, and saying she hoped states that hold elections for judges would change to an appointment model like the federal system. The result of judicial elections "has been the need for candidates to raise money for their election campaigns and I think that has a corrupting influence on the selection of judges."

O'Connor has been criticized since retiring from the Court by some proponents of state judicial elections and in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal for her involvement in the issue. This included her support of changes to the judge-selection laws in Michigan and Iowa.

And this isn't the first time O'Connor has talked about what she calls the need for iCivics. In early 2011, she said during an appearance at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University in Phoenix that, "People simply don't know today how their government works. They don't know the difference between federal and state courts. We live in a very uneducated age."

At the Senate hearing, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) joined O'Connor in criticizing the attacks on Roberts. "These types of attacks reveal the misguided notion that justices and judges owe some allegiance to the president who appointed them or to a political party," Leahy said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee's ranking minority member, said that the leading reason for "the so-called attack on judicial independence" are the judges' actions. "We hear that if only our citizens properly understood the role of the courts, unprecedented attacks on judicial rulings would vanish," Grassley said. "This view is at odds with both current reality and the history of our country."

Grassley pointed out that many Americans now disapprove of the Supreme Court's performance, and the healthcare decision did not improve its popularity. He cited a news account that showed Americans believe the decision was based mainly on the justices' personal or political views, and only about 30 percent of Americans say the decision was made mainly on legal analysis.

When asked about the cause of that decline in public's approval, O'Connor said: "I wish I knew."

She speculated the Bush v. Gore decision was a tipping point. "It is conceivable because that was a very tense case that involved the holdovers from a very close election," O'Connor said.

Grassley was the first to mention he favored allowing cameras in the Supreme Court. When O'Connor asked to speak about it, Grassley quipped that she should "Only speak if you speak in favor of it."

"Then I better keep my mouth shut," O'Connor said.

But later, O'Connor opened up on the topic, saying there are justices "at present who are not at all comfortable" with the cameras and that every word spoken in the court is publicly available to read later that day.

"It's not that there is a lack of ability to know what's going on. It's there," O'Connor said. "It's just, do we have to have it on the camera and on the television, or do we have to read it? I guess it boils down to that. I'm a reader, so don't ask me."

Comments

[JDNUL]

Grassley "cited a news account that showed Americans believe the decision was based mainly on the justices' personal or political views, and only about 30 percent of Americans say the decision was made mainly on legal analysis." The key point is that, as an earlier commenter said, Americans are not sufficiently well-educated about the law and "legal analysis" (or civics, the Constitution, logical reasoning or many other subjects) to know whether or not "the decision was made mainly on legal analysis." What percentage of Americans know what the Commerce Clause (CC) says and are familiar with Supreme Court CC jurisprudence? Certainly less than 1%.

The Chief Justice followed a basic principle of constitutional law: if there is a basis upon which to uphold a law against a constitutional attack, that basis should be applied to uphold it. In any case, the individual mandate clearly was constitutional under the CC as part of a comprehensive national solution to address a national problem: promoting health care insurance coverage and access to health care. The health care and health care insurance industries operate across state lines, and every American will use health care services at some point in his/her life, so there is an obvious and significant effect on interstate commerce. Case closed. The "requirement" to buy health insurance or pay a penalty (correctly found to be a tax) was deemed necessary by Congress to avoid "adverse selection," i.e., the healthiest people do not purchase coverage, leaving insurers only a pool of the unhealthiest people to insure, thus driving up costs. This is a policy decision that is left to Congress.

[Darlene Daniele]

I think O'Connor has a point; Americans have become very apathetic about government. We are much more likely to complain than act, and it all goes back to the schools. Some high schools don't have a civics education requirement-very sad!

[John E.]

Former Justice O'Connor seems to misunderstand (or deliberately misrepresents) that the criticisms of Chief Justice Roberts as a "traitor" were based not on his failure to adhere to the position the President who appointed him would presumably have wished, but to adhere to the Constitution. But that is the key issue; and if he truly believed that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional but manipulated the law in order to uphold it to avoid criticism of the Court, then he failed to perform the duty that the Constitution assigns to him, a duty made possible by the very independence of the judiciary that Justice O'Connor purports to espouse. Seems to me that it is she, not the Roberts critics, who are in need of a civics lesson.

[Renee Marie Jones]

The Supreme court has invited such criticism by its repeated rulings that are clearly based on politics and not the law. Ruling that the Constitution prohibits an accurate vote count in Bush v. Gore is a prime example.

[Jon]

How interesting to have such helpful illustrations in the comments. One comment seems to support Justice O'Connor's assertion that education is sorely lacking, while another reminds us that education can't fix everything, especially not paranoid schizophrenia or general wackadoodlery.

[Tom]

Diatribes are so much more appealing when with proper grammar and spelling.

[ELois Poole-Clayton]

The issues taxpayers are bombbarded with, is caused by the corruption that has existed in the courts for TOOOO many years!

Recently, many lawsuits has arisen, because of the fact that many MORE individuals, has/is learning MORE, how the courts operated(NOT how they "operate"), and this is releasing more dollars that the courts want to release, but that is JUST because, society is becoming MORE aware, of the munipulations the courts are doing, resulting in ERRORS, MISCONDUCT, judges NOT conducting themselves in a 'MINITERIAL' manner, etc. and it is becoming MORE INtolerable!

These uneducated judges/corrypt judges, are being EXPOSED MORE, DAILY and the cities,(including the City of Chicago), are being EXPOSED for the MANY corruptions in Chicago-Illinois courts!

[Leslie Weatherhead]

Justice O'Connor has a very important idea: better education is the best answer to a host of our problems. I would suggest that a better grounding in critical thinking and the principles of rhetoric is even more important than improvement in civics education, as important as that certainly is.

Consider the Citizens United case. The Court was right to say that authorizing government to decide which groups (corporate, or others) get to say what about politics is a dangerous idea. The solution to the power of corporate speech is not censorship, it is a better educated electorate.

Note that Citizens United was not about outright vote buying; that is clearly illegal and properly so. No, corporate speech translates to political power only because corporate money buys lots of advertising that is loaded with logical fallacies that our children are no longer taught to recognize and dismiss.

If any voters were moved by the Willie Horton ad to do anything but laugh hysterically it was only because they lacked the critical thinking skills to see it as the awful nonsequitur and appeal to prejudice that it was.

I hope that state legislatures pay attention to Justice O'Connor's wise advice and fix the lack of critical thinking skills that plagues our civic functions.

[Don Mashak]

So OConnor is on board with the Humpty Dumpty, Master of Words (through the looking glass) bull roar of #SCOTUS Robert's....

I am only one thing to say, WE THE PEOPLE can read too. Penalty does not equal taxes. And the Constitution forbids #obamacare.

Liberals should be scared crapless knowing that the Right half of the 1 and only 1 ruling class secretly wanted #Obamacare. Chief Justice John Humpty Dumpty Roberts didn't just take a flyer on this issue. He consulted with the Republicans and they all laughed there asses off at how easy WE THE PEOPLE can be managed and manipulated.

THE REAL PRIZE FOR THE 1 AND ONLY ONE RULING CLASS WAS THE RULING ESSENTIALLY SHREDDING THE CONSTITUTION. EVEN IF #OBAMACARE CARE IS OVERTURNED, WE ARE STILL STUCK WITH THE PRECEDENT THAT THEY WILL WHIP OUT AND CRAM DOWN A FUTURE GENERATION OF AMERICANS.

Apology TO future generations of Americans for Obamacare (1 of 2) http://t.co/9TyoWoL0 #WETHEPEOPLETAR #TCOT #TLOT #TEAParty #occupy #infowars

Apology to future generations of Americans for #Obamacare 2/2 http://exm.nr/QbteZk #WETHEPEOPLETAR #TCOT #TLOT #TEAParty #asamom #SGP #military

To my followers: Pls contact 8th Circuit Court 314-244-2400 &urge them to grant my PETITION FOR FRAP 35 &/OR 40 HEARING http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/petition-for-frap-35-en-banc-andor-frap-65263

THEY HAVE DESTROYED MY LIFE FOR SIMPLY EXERCISING MY 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES AND THEY THINK IT IS FUNNY!

JFK: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AesVsRvOEo

Perhaps those incumbent ruling class and the judges that repress us should take note of what happened to other tyrannical leaders who thought they were invincible, so they know what fate awaits them should violent revolution occur. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=gIJmWS6qaCk&bpctr=1343256832&skipcontrinter=1

WORDS MEAN THINGS YOU EVIL BASTARDS!

[Pancho]

When asked about the cause of that decline in public's approval, O'Connor said: "I wish I knew."

Here's a clue, Justice Sandra Day: Bush v. Gore!

[Martin Fisher-Haydis]

I expect the reason for the public's decreasing approval of the Court has far more to do with the portrayal of the issues by the media than of any actual understanding by the public of issues being decided by the court and differing views on the court's legal rationale for decisions. Most of the public's view about anything to do with the judicial branch comes from what they see, hear or read from a news source - that's it. Trying to look for a more profound cause is a waste of time - there just isn't another explanation. The media is now a principal actor in fomenting division and polarization among the public. It's regrettable and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

[Robert N. Foreman]

Justice O'Connor knows that of which she speaks.

[Peter]

Hon. J.P. Stevens was right in his dissent nearly 12 years ago!