Justice Kagan Criticizes Supreme Court Voting and Campaign-Finance Rulings

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan criticized decisions by the court’s conservative majority that she said have harmed democracy by encouraging partisan gerrymandering and weakening safeguards for the political system.

Speaking Tuesday to students at Catholic University of America’s law school in Washington, Kagan said both major parties were engaged in a “race to the bottom” in drawing congressional districts. She said partisan maps deprive many voters of equal representation, push candidates toward political extremes and deepen polarization.

Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, focused on an April ruling that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and a June decision striking down a limit on party spending coordinated with candidates. She said the court’s conservatives had failed to give appropriate weight to the real-world consequences of those decisions.

The voting-rights ruling was followed by new redistricting efforts, including Republican-led efforts in Texas to target Democratic-held U.S. House seats and a Democratic-led remapping in California aimed at Republican-held seats. Kagan said the campaign-finance decision also created opportunities for donors to corrupt candidates.

“I do think in all these areas the court has blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works,” Kagan said.