President Joe Biden speaks on the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in college admissions in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on June 29, 2023, in Washington. As Biden heads into 2024, he’s not only running against the Republicans who control the legislative branch, he’s also running against conservatives who dominate the co-equal judicial branch. It’s a subtle, but significant, shift in approach toward the nation’s highest court—treating it more like a political entity.
“The president respects the court’s authority, but if its judgments are going to be political and there are members of the court who are saying that, he owes it to voters to make it clear what his positions are and what he’s doing to address it,” said Ron Klain, his former chief of staff. Biden has won his share of cases, including on immigration, before a court where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority. But the student loan defeat capped a term when justices imposed significant roadblocks.
Republicans are working to portray Biden as overstepping his legal authority in pursuit of his agenda. They say the high court’s policies are in step with much of the country and they are trying to motivate their own voters by highlighting what the GOP has achieved through court rulings. Klain insisted that everything Biden has put forward had a solid legal basis and was approved by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Positive views of the court among Republicans and those who lean Republican have increased to 73 percent. As a result, the partisan gap is larger than at any other point in the 35 years of polling that Pew has done on the court. Biden has taken to warning voters about what else the Supreme Court might do in the future, whether rolling back same-sex marriage rights or access to contraception.