{"id":699385,"date":"2026-06-12T08:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699385\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T08:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:42:12","slug":"supreme-court-analysis-kbj-blasts-amy-coney-barretts-contempt-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699385\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court analysis: KBJ blasts Amy Coney Barrett\u2019s \u201ccontempt\u201d for Congress."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of Opinionpalooza<\/a>, Slate\u2019s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. Keep up with all of our Supreme Court coverage and analysis by signing up for weekly email roundups<\/a>. The best way to support our work\u2014and unlock exclusive legal analysis\u2014is by joining Slate Plus<\/a>. (If you are already a member, consider a donation<\/a> or merch<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

One of the Supreme Court\u2019s most quietly destructive projects of late is its refusal to let Americans vindicate the rights that Congress has tried to give them. In a 6\u20133 decision<\/a> on Thursday, the Republican-appointed justices continued that crusade, weakening a statute designed to protect investors by preventing them from suing when certain funds break the law. Justice Amy Coney Barrett\u2019s wooden majority opinion dismissed the notion that Congress intended to let injured parties sue under the statute\u2014even though lawmakers unambiguously stated that they wanted courts to recognize such a right. In a stinging dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the majority of harboring outright \u201ccontempt\u201d for Congress and undermining democracy by elevating its policy preferences above those of our elected representatives.<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus<\/a>, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling, FS Credit v. Saba Capital, and the fierce debate it ignited between Barrett and Jackson. A preview of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Dahlia Lithwick: This seems like a very technical case, but that 6\u20133 split signifies a lot. What did the court decide?<\/p>\n

Mark Joseph Stern: This case is yet another example of the Republican-appointed justices narrowing a federal law in ways that prevent parties from vindicating the rights Congress tried to give them. That\u2019s a move the supermajority loves to make to undermine statutes that they don\u2019t really like. We saw it just last term in Medina v. Planned Parenthood<\/a>, when the supermajority said Medicaid recipients can\u2019t sue when they\u2019re denied the provider of their choice. And there are ominous signs<\/a> we\u2019ll see it happen again soon when the court reconsiders whether the Voting Rights Act contains a private right to sue. If the Republican-appointed justices apply the same reasoning there, they would render what remains of the Voting Rights Act largely unenforceable for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

This particular case involves a federal statute called the Investment Company Act that provides that each share gets equal voting power in closed-end funds<\/a>. So someone who holds 10 shares gets 10 votes. Activist investors who want to force changes at underperforming closed-end funds take advantage of this rule by buying up a bunch of shares and then trying to change how the fund is run. In this case, the fund being targeted thwarted the activist investors by denying them the full voting power of their shares. The investors sued under the statute, saying that move was obviously illegal. But by a 6\u20133 vote, with Justice Barrett writing for the conservatives, the Supreme Court held that they could not sue under this statute because Congress did not create such a right.<\/p>\n

This case I think brings together a couple of themes. One is the supermajority\u2019s insistence that, no, you can\u2019t vindicate your rights in court. Another is this contempt for Congress that we keep seeing over and over again. Justice Jackson wrote a scorcher of a principal dissent rebuking the conservative supermajority again over its open disdain for Congress actually doing the thing Congress is tasked with doing. What\u2019s her argument?<\/p>\n

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First, Justice Jackson said Barrett just read the statute wrong, which I think is correct. But she also said that if the statute is really as unclear as Barrett thinks, the court should turn to legislative history for clarity. And the legislative history shows beyond any real doubt that Congress absolutely intended to create a private right to sue under this statute. As Jackson pointed out, the relevant House Committee said it \u201cwishes to make plain that it expects the courts to imply private rights of action under this legislation.\u201d As she put it: \u201cI have seldom seen a clearer expression of legislative intent in a congressional record.\u201d Barrett dismissed this as \u201cpsychoanalysis of Congress\u201d and insisted that courts must look only at the text and ignore legislative history. She claimed this doctrine prevents courts from cherry-picking tidbits of committee reports or creating a private right to sue when Congress didn\u2019t include one.<\/p>\n

Jackson fired back that Barrett\u2019s approach actually aggrandizes the role of the court and elevates it over Congress. She wrote that considering legislative history \u201cprevents the preferences of judges from supplanting the will of the people.\u201d And she makes a very strong case that Barrett\u2019s approach gives courts more leeway to impose their policy preferences under the guise of statutory interpretation because they can pass off those preferences as logical \u201cinferences\u201d of what Congress really meant. As Jackson put it, disregarding legislative history \u201cinappropriately elevates the justices\u2019 own power by promoting our views about the \u2018best\u2019 policy call. But Congress is not our rival; courts are not in the policymaking arena at all.\u201d For example, she cited the Supreme Court\u2019s decisions striking down President Biden\u2019s student debt forgiveness<\/a> and clean energy plan<\/a>, both of which drew on the majority\u2019s subjective inference of what Congress really wanted.<\/p>\n

As you said, it\u2019s all about hostility to Congress. It\u2019s about the court saying: We know best. This is what Congress must have meant. And if Congress didn\u2019t mean this, it should have, so we\u2019ll say it anyway. Jackson captured this well with her spiciest quote: \u201cThe majority\u2019s failure\u2014or refusal\u2014to accept [legislative history] might stem from what commentators have called<\/a> a prevailing \u2018academic contempt for Congress.\u2019 Academics may think what they wish of Congress; this court\u2019s jurisprudence ought not be grounded in such contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think her larger point, too, is that this is a one-way ratchet: The more you disempower Congress, the more you empower the court. And this is just the latest entry in a canon that Jackson is building up<\/a> in a series of dissents. It\u2019s a critique of the supermajority for assuming this posture of modesty while inexorably cutting off Congress at the knees. None of this is a great sign of what\u2019s to come in the remaining cases. But it does feel like Justice Jackson is out there at the top of the mountain ringing a very loud alarm bell to say: This is the play. It\u2019s a familiar play from the conservative supermajority, aggrandizing the court\u2019s power in the guise of judicial restraint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s tricky, because they pretend to be limiting themselves with this rigid textualism. At this point, though, Justice Jackson is on the offensive. She\u2019s showing us exactly how the majority manipulates the text until it gets where it wants to go. And she\u2019s arguing that her approach isn\u2019t just more honest; it\u2019s more respectful to Congress, less interested in making the Supreme Court the apex body of government, more concerned about keeping the court in its lane of interpreting Congress\u2019 handiwork. I can\u2019t help but think of Callais here, because it\u2019s a perfect example of how the court bulldozes Congress, bulldozing democracy in the process. The court is saying: We know what\u2019s best. And KBJ is at the top of the mountain saying: No, we really don\u2019t. Congress knows better than we do, and we should listen to them.<\/p>\n

And of course Congress answers to us, the people\u2014at least theoretically, and certainly in a way that the Roberts Six do not. I do think the dissenters have become very deft in calling out this play and saying: Whatever you think about this, judicial modesty it is not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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