(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Left-wing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissents have long drawn blistering rebukes from her colleagues, with some even on the left taking issue with her reasoning. Monday was no different.
Jackson’s complaints in Louisiana v. Callais — the case that struck down the state’s congressional map — drew a forceful rebuke from Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, who said her rhetoric “lacks restraint.”
Monday’s decision came after the court agreed to scrap the 32-day wait period before formally sending the ruling to lower courts because the losing party had “not expressed any intent to ask this Court to reconsider its judgment.”
In a strongly worded dissent, Jackson claimed the ruling “has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” raising two main objections.
Alito shot back that Jackson had leveled “charges that cannot go unanswered,” calling one “trivial at best” and the other “baseless and insulting.”
First, Alito said the court had a clear “good reason” to bypass the 32-day waiting period, as requested by the prevailing parties of the case.
“The congressional districting map enacted by the legislature has been held to be unconstitutional, and the general election will be held in just six months,” he wrote.
He then dismissed Jackson’s claim that the court should have waited to avoid the appearance of partiality.
Alito countered that she failed to explain why waiting would not instead create the “appearance of partiality” by “running out the clock” for those who may see it “politically advantageous to have the election occur under the unconstitutional map.”
On Jackson’s claim that the ruling amounted to an abuse of power, Alito fired back: “That is a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”
“What principle has the Court violated?” Alito asked. “The principle that Rule 45.3’s 32-day default period should never be shortened even when there is good reason to do so? The principle that we should never take any action that might unjustifiably be criticized as partisan?”
Responding to Jackson’s claim that the court “unshackles itself from both constraints today and dives into the fray,” Alito wrote sharply: “It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint.”
