Public opinion is predominantly critical of the Supreme Court, emphasizing its perceived failure to enforce rulings and a growing mistrust due to accusations of partisanship. Many commenters are concerned about the impact this has on democracy and legislative integrity.

Supreme Court

State Governors

Federal Government

Well, yeah. Brown v. Board being the most famous case. Since SCOTUS can’t enforce things themselves, it’s up to the the executive branch to pick up the slack.

Nerds4506

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), Jackson refused to enforce the Marshall Court’s ruling.

Born-Matter-2182

[deleted]

A lot of times, yes.

A ruling is just that. Without enforcement, a SCOTUS can say whatever but nothing will happen

SuchDogeHodler

Yes, it’s normal and common for states to ignore Supreme Court rulings.

All the northern states ignored Dred Scott v Sandford (1857) which ruled that black Americans are not citizens and therefore can’t vote. All the northern states continued to include Black Americans as citizens.

More recently, states like New York, Hawai’i, and California ignore DC v Heller (2008) and repeatedly ban guns with no deference to the Supreme Court at all and get periodically overruled by the court for it.

It’s normal for legislatures to make laws contrary to the preference of the Supreme Court and take their chances. Often the local judges are part of the local machine and will go along with them until the Supremes take up the issue over again.

UtahBrian

Goodness yes. Many times, some cases quite famously.

ManOfManliness84

Massive resistance would be one. My understanding is essentially brown vs board came down saying schools had to integrate, removing separate but equal. So many southern states just stopped having lots of public school (it's equal they both don't have school). Many sent their kids to private schools.

goodsam2

Yeah, it was called the civil rights movement.  Ike sent troops to escort children to high school in Arkansas (while Jerry Jones looked on).

Then later Kendey and LBL informed Universities like Ole Miss they would ineligible for NCAA sports and bowls

3LoneStars

Yes, Alabama with school desegregation.  It ignored the Court.  The President had to send in armed federal troops to enforce the Court’s ruling,

Civil rights rulings began in the 40s. Civil rights weren't a thing until the 60s.

States do it all the time with the 2A and related rulings

Ghost_Turd

Illinois on just about everything related to the second amendment. Last state in the union to pass concealed carry and only because the SCOTUS said they had to, still drug it out as long as they could. Illinois' FOID (Firearms Owner ID) has been declared unconstitutional several times over the past 2 decades and the extortion continues.

pat_e_ofurniture

There is an interesting issue going on right now with sanctuary cities. The Trump administration is trying to enforce the immigration laws on the books (with some notable exceptions) and sanctuary states and cities are attempting to block these efforts by not complying with federal laws. They have sued the federal government multiple times on this issue and each time SCOTUS has dismissed the case, essentially siding with the laws on the books, i.e. the federal government. In an interview with Anderson Cooper AOC said Democratic lawmakers should simply ignore these rulings and do what they want, which is troublesome as Democrats are now screaming bloody murder about Trump threatening to do the very same thing. It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS ever makes a consequential ruling regarding sanctuary cities and if Democratic lawmakers decide to ignore such a ruling, which might give license to Trump to do the same, something he would take full advantage of and may try to do anyway.

DetectiveBlackCat

The Supreme Court has no enforcement function. It is merely out of courtesy that their rulings are followed.

If Arkansas decides that it doesn't want black kids in a white school, is the Supreme Court gonna write a letter demanding they do so?

Arkansas tears up the letter and says up yours.

But the President sent troops to enforce.

The Supreme Court has no actual power and this is a well known problem in the checks and balances. This is why Marbury v Madison is so important, because without the courtesy of respect to its findings, the SCOTUS is just a bunch of old people giving RECOMMENDATIONS.

The Founders debated giving them an enforcement mechanism, but then that requires adding another set of balances. Then that raises a scary proposition of courts being in charge and wielding executive or legislative function, thus negating the separation of powers.

The courts rely on the courtesy of the legislative and executive branches giving them a bit of leeway, which is why Judicial Review is NOT in the constitution, but is a critical federal judicial allowed power.

Congress and the President could at any moment just say, "Judicial Review isn't constitutional. We aren't required to honor it."

This terrifyingly throws Roe v Wade and other cases like it even further into doubt, because without Judicial Review being respected out of courtesy, it means nothing and is a longwinded legal diatribe.

SideEmbarrassed1611

South Carolina back in the day vis a vis the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee/Trail of Tears.  Cherokee sued, won in the Supreme Court and it didn't fucking matter.

ikonoqlast

Andrew Jackson did it on several occasions

V3gasMan

marcopoloman

Right now NY is doing everything in it's power to ignore Bruen.  Parts of their reactionary legislation have already been struck down with likely more to come.

AllswellinEndwell

Georgia.  The Trail of Tears was the result.

External_Produce7781

Yes, Maine is currently doing it now:

In 2022, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Carson v. Makin that Maine could not require schools to be “nonsectarian” in order to be eligible for funding through this program.

According to the Court, enforcement of this criteria represented a violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

Immediately following the release of this decision, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) issued a statement doubling down on the State’s position that religious schools should be excluded from the Town Tuitioning program on account of their religious beliefs:

“The education provided by the schools at issue here is inimical to a public education.

They promote a single religion to the exclusion of all others, refuse to admit gay and transgender children, and openly discriminate in hiring teachers and staff. One school teaches children that the husband is to be the leader of the household.

While parents have the right to send their children to such schools, it is disturbing that the Supreme Court found that parents also have the right to force the public to pay for an education that is fundamentally at odds with values we hold dear.”

Also in the statement, Attorney General Frey vowed to explore ways to avoid allowing religious schools to participate in the program going forward.

Maine still refuses to pay the schools as ordered by SCOTUS

https://www.themainewire.com/2025/01/maine-christian-schools-religious-discrimination-lawsuits-against-state-heard-by-appeals-court/

Serious_Butterfly714

Yes new york and california on gun laws several times over the pasf 30 years. 

Conscious-Ideal9607

Hawaii ignored bruen.  It wasn't in the spirit of aloha

Admirable-Lecture255

NoWordForHero21

Outrageous-Table6524

Many times and a notable recent example from 2018 were Alabama overturn Roe v Wade by Alabama Amendment 2, State Abortion Policy Amendment (2018)

enzion_6

As recently as 2024, the state of Texas ignored the supreme court ruling that they were required to take down razor wire in the Rio Grande. They got away with it because the Biden administration did little to enforce the decision

DAmieba

It’s happening now is several states who are ignoring several 2nd amendment decisions.

EldoMasterBlaster

Carlyz37

Vivid-Feature-4629

In the last 3 years we have seen it. The Supreme Court said Texas beeded to remove its razor blades across rhe river.


And Texas said no. 

myflesh

We are seeing in full real time display, that law is bullshit, and all that matters is what law society you are a part of, and that doctrine becomes reality.

Precedent means nothing, Logic means nothing, the only thing that matters is an "R" or a "D" next to the name and that determines how law gets applied.

George Washington would be rolling in his grave, utterly embarrassed, shocked, disappointed, and full of rage at what bullshit this country has become.

Shadowtirs

On Tuesday, we saw some of the earliest fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer in [*United States v. Skrmetti*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-477_2cp3.pdf) that allowed a Tennessee law that blocks health care for trans minors to go into effect. The new ruling hit neighboring Arkansas, but it actually covers a wide swath of the country, expands on the ruling in *Skrmetti*, embraces that decision’s indifference toward the health and safety of trans children, and inflicts grave harm on numerous families across the Midwest.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8^(th) Circuit released a 8–2 decision in [*Brandt v. Griffin*](https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/08/232681P.pdf), holding that Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors survives three different challenges to its constitutionality. In part, this en banc ruling followed *Skrmetti*, in which the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority held that a similar ban does not violate the equal protection clause because it does not classify based on transgender status or sex, thus surviving the minimal evaluation standard of rational basis review. However, in *Skrmetti*, the court denied a petition by minors and their parents that argued the ban also infringes on parental rights protected under the due process clause. Moreover, no one has argued that the Tennessee ban conflicts with the freedom of speech of health care providers protected under the First Amendment. Now, the highly conservative 8^(th) Circuit went beyond *Skrmetti,* dismissing those two additional challenges brought by parents and doctors*.*

For more: [https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/08/supreme-court-fallout-anti-trans-ruling-skrmetti.html](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/08/supreme-court-fallout-anti-trans-ruling-skrmetti.html)

Slate

John Roberts is a fascist fucking cunt and the entire GOP needs to be eliminated. THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER -- GFL

GalacticFartLord

This court is undermining 60 years of progress.  Roberts continues to side with a convicted felon on every issue.  Democracy continues to suffer under this GOP extreme court.

jwr1111

“Courts controlled by conservative majorities follow the Supreme Court’s supermajority and stray from established analysis and precedents to achieve ideology-driven outcomes.”

This is wrong and makes a travesty of our justice system.

PithyPacky

This court makes their decision first then (only sometimes) finds logic to support it. They're legislating from the bench.

Brilliant-Giraffe983

There is no rule of law currently in the country. It’s just MAGAts doing whatever the fuck they want and these six partisan injustices rubber stamping everything 6-3 in favor of MAGA.

Rambo_Baby

Glad this sub is finally accepting the reality that all that respect and good faith was entirely misplaced on this fascist, unethical, immoral, politically-partial SCOTUS.

ceruleanmoon7

Narrator: They do not, in fact, apply equally in blue or red states.

yeseecanada

We already know they don't. Remedied parental rights to control school curriculum to not offend the parent's Christian hatred. But prevented parental rights for parents who consult their child and their child's doctor and make the decision to put the child on puberty blockers. 

The mask has been off for a while. We know they are simply reactionary Christian Republicans legislating from the bench. How many times does Lucy have to pull the ball away before we can just call it what it is?

At least their latest unlawful decisions gave us the courtesy of not pretending there's a coherent legal argument for them.

BraveOmeter

more than anything i hope i live ling enough to see alito, thomas, gorsuch, kavanaugh and barret leave the bench for jurists of more progressive, understanding, thoughtful and forward thinking approaches.

314Piepurr

They will simply rule that they don’t, and there will not be an explanation.  That seems to be the current M.O.

Bluvsnatural

The fact that this question has made it to the SCOTUS means that our judicial system has already failed the test. 

darnnaggit

Master_Income_8991

Why not ? The law of the land is that some states observe a woman's right to privacy when pregnant...and some don't. This could be nothing new on that basis.

Pleasurist

I mean, you’d think this is something so clear and obvious… but the Supreme Court is being ‘tested’.

Jingtseng

Laws are only effective if we follow them. Once we ALL stop following them maybe we can rebuild society but until then the circus continues

Hadfromthetown

The supreme Court is an absolute joke and laughing stock at the moment

Groson

CandyLoxxx

absolutely out in the open naked hypocrisy of conservative courts is ruining us.

Exodus180

The Supreme Pedoprotectors get to decide about our children??

Yowiman

Not much of a test for Scotus - they are obsolete, basically a rubber stamp for The Government of Pedos. They will be seen as the most corrupt and incompetent sitting members ever. They have ignored the law, the constitution and instead of being a check and balance part of government, they are just waiting for their “ cheques “ to make their rulings.

EastCoastBuck

AccountHuman7391

Tidewind

So next we’ll start making laws that apply only to democrats?

cleatsurfer

The majority will inevitably come up w some twisted and convoluted reason why it doesn't.

TruthDontChange

YellowDependent3107

I don’t think whether you’re a blue state or a red state should matter at all when it comes to parental rights.

L451

“The answer is “NAH. If you wanted protection of the law, you shouldn’t have been born POOR. Sucks to suck PLEBS!””

-SCTOUS (ruling paraphrased but the crux is there)

Worried-Criticism

This article is absurd - the 8th circuit is bound by SCOTUS so their faithful application of skrmetti isnt an issue and the two alternative arguments were extremely fringe and would have 0 chance in even a liberal COA.  The issue is the Court handing down decisions that the sub disagrees with not this decision

riptide123

Gender affirming care for minors is obviously not a right. States that want to allow it can, those that do not want don’t…

LopatoG

Both sides want babies born at all costs. No matter if the baby is healthy or if the mother survives. They need bodies to feed the machine. Rights and suffering mean nothing to them.

BusinessNonYa

Yes, per the explicit wording of the Constitution Congress can abolish all federal courts except for the Supreme Court. Additionally, there is no prescribed minimum number of justices. That number is set by Congress. So if it wanted, Congress could reduce the Supreme Court to just the chief justice.

The equality is that the sole justice would still have the power of judicial review. (S)he and (s)he alone would have the power to interpret the law and say what it means. And that person would have life tenure. While that would limit access to the relief under federal law (because of the limited number of cases that one justice could hear) it would permit that justice to have immense power. Essentially getting to choose which cases he wants to hear and getting an absolute say over what (s)he wants the outcome to be.

Also, the judiciary wouldn’t be abolished, it would just be shrunk to one court. Congress cannot abolish the judicial branch, it constitutionally must exist per Article 3.

EntertainmentAny1630

Yes.  But, the SCOTUS being reduced to a single judge would have to happen over time because the 9 judges are appointed for life.  (Shrinking SCOTUS was done before.  Most of these "government in extremis" ideas of one form or another were actually done sometime between 1850 and 1870.)

Uhhh_what555476384



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&gt;The 8th Circuit’s decision demonstrates a rising distorted constitutional regime. Courts controlled by conservative majorities follow the Supreme Court’s supermajority and stray from established analysis and precedents to achieve ideology-driven outcomes. They effectively carve out a new troubling norm: Constitutional rights for me but not for thee.

https://en.meming.world/images/en/5/5d/James_Franco_First_Time.jpg

"Separate but equal" and "Everyone has equal rights of freedom of religion.  But fundamentalist Christians are more equal than others."

kandoras

They don't. Christian conservatives will tell you parents know what's best and so they can block libraries and schools from even exposing their kids to books about LGBT people. They'll also tell you that parents don't know what's best for their kids about gender affirming care. They are just hypocrites.

T1Pimp

Don't worry.  They'll end up 6-3 (opinion by Alito) finding a way to contort a solution that lets MAGA do whatever it wants and fucks over the left.

letdogsvote

Of course not. Whatever pretzel they need to shape themselves into to let Red states do whatever and blue states get fucked in the ass.

cheongyanggochu-vibe

They decline all the santanic church and other atheist suits. 

OdonataDarner

If they are being tested we know they're going to fail.

burnmenowz

Any and all states are free to grant more rights, just not less that the federal constitution and or its interpretation by the highest court.  Of course the federal executive can take action with respect to funding cuts which they will use as a leverage just like it was done with speed limits.

PsychLegalMind

That sounds suspiciously like Chevron, does someone here know how we are supposed to distinguish this standard from the one in Chevron?

Genuine question, I’m a bit stumped.

Edit: I thought about it, would Chevron be specifically how an agency interprets statute when making policy, whereas this is about how they execute the policy?

Second edit: read through the opinion and I think this is what we are to understand as the new rule.

The court decides whether a statute is ambiguous or tells the executive to exercise discretion. If the statute was ambiguous, the court resolves the ambiguity. If it told the executive to exercise discretion, the court gives deference to the executive’s judgment.

Appropriate_Ad4615

This is a unanimous case and it held this language - "Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness," the opinion continued.

  
I think that is sending a message about activist judges.  5 justices joined in this opinion.  Can't wait to read the concurrence from the others.

scrapqueen

I am an environmental attorney and deal with these issues every day.  Frankly I am at a loss as to how to square this with Loper Bright.  I will have to read it again more carefully but what the court may be saying is that with NEPA Congress clearly delegated broad discretion to the implementing agencies to develop EISs.  What Loper Bright struck down was IMPLYING that there was a clear delegation of legislative authority to the executive branch due to ambiguity in the authorizing statute.

The cynical way of looking at this is that the majority was more interested in the result, i.e. that NEPA be construed narrowly.  The reach this result the Court had to defer to the agency’s narrower interpretation of NEPA.  The liberal justices might have agreed to go along with it because the Court seemed to resurrect part of Chevron from the dead.

This Court looks like it doesn’t have any principles.

Any-Winner-1590

pulsed19

When I see a link to the story from an actual news organization, I'll click on it.

MessagingMatters

On one hand, I know the public perception of this on the left will be terrible. On the otherhand, my own personal experience working on NEPA projects, both as a specialist and as the IDT lead, is that some environmental groups abuse the absolute fuck out of the courts and NEPA process, simply being obstructionist, even when they know there is no actual legal leg to stand on.

MrArborsexual

First they neutered the EPA, now they castrate their own brethren. 

Green overalls are too good for this situation

BigJSunshine

Broad zone of reasonableness. Reasonable like 90% of fish/mammals are GONE, and a minuscule 4% of the earth surface is still considered wild?

Kunphen

Why does this come across as a precursor to SCOTUS ruling in favor of blocking courts from restricting Trump's actions?

TheMrDetty

Megadum

The only thing more fun than seeing a unanimous decision is seeing a 5-4 along non-ideological lines (you know something's up when the majority is Thomas, Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson).

remember_the_alimony

[here are some actual news organizations](https://www.axios.com/2025/05/29/supreme-court-narrows-nepa-scope)

[reporting on the issue](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/29/supreme-court-limits-agency-environmental-reviews-00374122)

[for people who don’t want to support Fraudulent Faux Entertainment](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-limits-environmental-impact-studies-expediting-infrastructure/story?id=122312471)

EyesofaJackal

Ok-Bar601

I'll wait on a real news org to report this.

LyonsKing12_

Im sure someone will find a way to complain about the Supreme Court being right leaning here despite it being nearly unanimous.

what are the factual and statistical identifiers associated with "broad zone of reasonableness"

D-inventa

RevolutionaryCard512

Glidepath22

How did that illiterate KBJ make the right call??

im-obsolete

The Supreme Court is deliberating on the authority of Governors to withhold assent on state bills, questioning the balance of power in governance.

Supreme Court Hearing on Governor's Role in State Legislation

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