The extreme right-wing activist majority has reversed longstanding legal decisions and precedents. These rulings have adversely affected Americans’ freedoms, legal rights, and civil rights. These justices have intentionally chosen to decide specific cases based on an ideological vision that is out of touch with most Americans. Two years after its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, two-thirds of Americans still oppose the Court����ap decision with political ramifications that could meaningfully impact the 2024 election as it did during the midterm election.

And, just when you thought the imperial Court couldn’t cause any more institutional damage, it issues a 6-3 decision reshaping the institution of the presidency by granting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes they commit in office. The Court����ap decision essentially insulates presidents from criminal liability. Thanks to this Court, Americans can no longer say that no person is above the law. Yes, the Court����ap dangerous and extreme decisions threaten the foundation of our democracy.

But it����ap not just about the perilous decisions that make this Court����ap approval ratings so low, it����ap their unchecked behavior too. Moral lapses created a corruption crisis, which led to the Court����ap implementation of a Code of Ethics. The problem here is that the ethics code is non-binding and it allows the justices to police themselves. As a result, the shenanigans continue and the new code has failed to stop justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas from participating in cases where their impartiality is rightfully questioned.

This week we learned that Justice Thomas — already known to be the benefactor of millions of dollars of gifts, trips and personal benefits — had taken even more luxury trips paid for by wealthy conservative donor Harlan Crow than previously reported by journalists. that Thomas received “at least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”

In response, the Senate Judiciary Committee launched an investigation and on Crow’s jet: to Glacier Park International Airport, to Dallas and to Savanah, Georgia.

For his part, Alito also received unreported significant luxury gifts from billionaire donor Paul Singer and had an upside-down American flag flying at his home to support the January 6th riot in the days after the insurrection attempt. Alito’s fishing buddy, Singer, later had cases before the Court, including one where Alito voted with the majority of justices in a case worth $2.4 billion to Singer’s hedge fund.

It’s no wonder that President Joe Biden has called for a binding, enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court. Justices should not be above the law either. And, this isn’t a partisan issue. A new USA Today/Ipsos poll showed that 70% of Republicans support a binding code of ethics that would require disclosure of gifts, prohibit involvement in political activity, and mandate recusal from cases involving conflicts of interest for themselves or their spouses.

It is also time for term limits to restore the Court����ap integrity and independence. President Biden has proposed an 18-year active term for justices, which two-thirds of Americans support as well.

Supreme Court justices enjoy a lifetime tenure until they die, step away voluntarily or are impeached for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The latter is extremely rare. Justices serve an average of about 28 years, which is equivalent to seven presidential terms. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed at age 48, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed at age 53,  could easily serve over 35 years.

Congress has the power to regulate the structure and jurisdiction of the Court and impose term limits. By way of example only, the number of seats on the Supreme Court has changed from a low of five to a high of ten members over the years.  After the Civil War, the number of justices was set at nine. Many have argued for adding more members to the Court, but that����ap not going to solve the problem.  And, if Congress won’t do it, it can be accomplished by a constitutional amendment as well.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, no other major democracy gives lifetime seats to judges who sit on constitutional courts, and even countries that previously did like Canada and the United Kingdom, have abandoned this practice. It is also incongruent with the practice among states that overwhelmingly oppose lifetime tenure. It����ap far from a partisan issue, but rather simply a matter of common sense. Forty-seven states, red, blue, and purple, require that their state supreme court justices serve fixed terms, subject to re-election or re-appointment. Further, most states have mandatory retirement ages. There are only three states that allow indefinite terms, but in those states, two of them have age limits.

Members of the Supreme Court����ap right-wing have placed ideology over impartiality, with its two most radical justices placing their own self-interest over the Court����ap integrity.  And, in doing so, they have undermined the foundation of our democracy. Without serious reform, both the president and the Court, will continue to operate in a manner that places them above the law and the public’s distrust will only continue to grow.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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In a historic 6-3 ruling, the justices said for the first time that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts. But rather than do it themselves, the justices ordered lower courts to figure out precisely how to apply the decision to Trump’s case.

The outcome means additional delay before Trump could face trial in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The court����ap decision in a second major Trump case this term, along with its ruling rejecting efforts to bar him from the ballot because of his actions following the 2020 election, underscores the direct and possibly uncomfortable role the justices are playing in the November election.

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Roberts was joined by the other five conservative justices. The three liberal justices dissented.

“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a scathing dissent.

Sotomayor, who read a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom, said the protection afforded presidents by the court “is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless.”

The ruling was the last of the term and it came more than two months after the court heard arguments, far slower than in other epic high court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes case.

The Republican former president has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony, in a New York court. He was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election to a porn actor who says she had sex with him, which he denies. He still faces three other indictments.

Smith is leading the two federal probes of the former president, both of which have led to criminal charges. The Washington case focuses on Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The case in Florida revolves around the mishandling of classified documents. The other case, in Georgia, also turns on Trump’s actions after his defeat in 2020.

If Trump’s Washington trial does not take place before the 2024 election and he is not given another four years in the White House, he presumably would stand trial soon thereafter.

But if he wins, he could appoint an attorney general who would seek the dismissal of this case and the other federal prosecution he faces. He could also attempt to pardon himself if he reclaims the White House. He could not pardon himself for the conviction in state court in New York.

The Supreme Court that heard the case included three justices appointed by Trump — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — and two justices who opted not to step aside after questions were raised about their impartiality.

Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni, attended the rally near the White House where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, though she did not go the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters attacked it soon after. Following the 2020 election, she called it a “heist” and exchanged messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to stand firm with Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread election fraud.

Justice Samuel Alito said there was no reason for him to step aside from the cases following reports by The New York Times that flags similar to those carried by the Jan. 6 rioters flew above his homes in Virginia and on the New Jersey shore. His wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was responsible for flying both the inverted American flag in January 2021 and the “Appeal to Heaven” banner in the summer of 2023, he said in letters to Democratic lawmakers responding to their recusal demands.

Trump’s trial had been scheduled to begin March 4, but that was before he sought court-sanctioned delays and a full review of the issue by the nation’s highest court.

Before the Supreme Court got involved, a trial judge and a three-judge appellate panel had ruled unanimously that Trump can be prosecuted for actions undertaken while in the White House and in the run-up to Jan. 6.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the appeals court wrote in February. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who would preside over the trial in Washington, ruled against Trump’s immunity claim in December. In her ruling, Chutkan said the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”

“Former Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability,” Chutkan wrote. “Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.”

This concludes a journey that began August 21, 2023, when local attorney and friend Mario Nicolais sent me a draft of the suit. I had heard two legal scholars with the Federalist Society had concluded likewise — Trump was ineligible to run according to the Constitution. As a staunch Republican critic of the ex-president����ap actions after the 2020 election, Nicolais thought I would be interested.

That week I spoke with Donald Sherman, the deputy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), the firm leading the effort. Did it bother me CREW leaned left? No. Over the past 30 years, I have worked with Democrats on school choice, pro-life, and animal welfare policies. Despite differences in opinion, I count many Democrats as friends.

In fact, at that moment, I thought of them. If a politician on the left had tried to disenfranchise me, as Trump did when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, I would want Democrats to act on my behalf. Could I ask of others what I would not do myself?

After joining the suit, multiple friends on the right and left voiced support. Other friends were concerned. Did we risk making Trump a martyr?  Were we opening a Pandora’s Box allowing officials to remove any candidate for any reason? A tough dilemma demands we weigh the unintended consequences of acting and of not acting. Allowing an insurrectionist on the ballot invites future politicians to do likewise. That is the more ominous outcome.

Despite expectations, the suit preceded.

Sitting in the U.S. Supreme Court chamber last month, I remembered how I, a starry-eyed 20-something-year-old, once sat there with Justice Clarence Thomas as he talked about his favorite play. Inspired, I later rented “A Man for All Seasons” and memorized the very exchange Thomas quoted that day: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat?”

Here I was again, now sitting next to Colorado election lawyer Martha Tierney. Nicolais was there, too. Rows away sat former Senate Majority Leader Norma Anderson, Chris Castilian, the former executive director of Great Outdoors Colorado, and former Congresswoman Claudine Cmarada. Lawyers of the Colorado firm Olson Grimsley and DC-based CREW lawyers and staff were there or close by. Our group wasn’t merely bipartisan; it was multigenerational and multiethnic, all united in purpose and the affection that grows from it.

Our lawyer Jason Murray, peppered with questions from all sides, sometimes without a chance to answer, represented us with skill and conviction. Nevertheless, we were worried; the justices’ questions felt like most had made up their minds.

Outside, the day was cool and sunny. Beyond the bank of press cameras stood the Capitol, where I had once given tours. A lifetime had passed since I was a congressional staffer.

Our pessimism that day was not unwarranted; this week, the court issued a unanimous ruling barring states from upholding the disqualification clause in the 14th Amendment. The majority opinion went a step further by claiming Congress has the sole prerogative to Section 3. Separate opinions by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson maintain states cannot enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in an ad-hoc way that impacts federal election results. All four justices, however, questioned the majority’s extraconstitutional assertion that only Congress can act. The amendment states, “Congress shall have power to enforce,” not “Congress alone.”

Sotomayor et al. predicted that by deputizing Congress, the majority had insulated future insurrectionists from challenges. Congressmen and women are reluctant to hold their own accountable. Even when memories of Jan. 6 were still fresh, the Senate could not muster the two-thirds vote needed to convict Trump and disqualify him from office. The largest bipartisan vote for impeachment of a president in U.S. history, it was nonetheless ten votes short. The amnesia of self-interest has erased whatever consternation Republican leaders felt then, and they are less likely to act now.

By federalizing enforcement, the court majority effectively nullified the third clause of the 14th Amendment without formally amending the Constitution. The minority can rejoice their erstwhile originalist colleagues now embrace a “living constitution.” Meanwhile, a group of citizens can no longer contest the eligibility of a candidate.

While the nation can now anticipate a less complicated election, the price of expediency will come due later. With a disabled disqualification clause, there is little to bar an officeholder who incites violence in pursuit of power from running again.

The authors of the 14th Amendment understood too well the danger. They knew voters would reelect the men who, rather than accept the 1860 election results, goaded them to war. People will follow to the grave charismatic politicians who skillfully cultivate their grievances, fears, and ambitions. The destructive power of demagogues sometimes cannot be restrained by votes; it must be stopped by law. They were determined not to let it happen again. As Sen. Peter Van Winkle noted in debate, “This [clause] is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present.”

The provision gathered dust until Trump attempted to overturn an election and prevent the transfer of power by deceit, intimidation, and, ultimately, violence.

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see a future Jan. 6 in an even more divisive time, where a bigger crowd with better weapons comes to the aid of a demagogue. Thanks to this week’s court ruling, if such a politician failed at insurrection, he could simply run again. There are worse things than chaos.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer

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While we disagree with their conclusion, the justices are right that that could violate competing portions of the Constitution requiring that federal officers are responsive to all the people of America through a coordinated election process.

We are dismayed, however, that Supreme Court Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and to a lesser extent Amy Coney Barrett, would so quickly and with so little explanation abandon their literal adherence to the plain words of the Constitution — a legal world-view known as “originalism.”

Not only did the originalists use historical context to decide what the 14th Amendment says, but they also undermined the entire amendment with a sweeping and far-reaching ruling that Coney Barrett criticized.

“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration,” write all of the conservative justices with the exception of Barrett, who wrote a short separate opinion. These men cry tears for an orderly election but couldn’t spare a moment for pregnant women suffering life-threatening health conditions.

Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas long ago swore it should not matter to good justices what bad outcomes might result from enforcing the Constitution as written, as long as they did not waver from the plain language. Roberts and Kavanaugh have never claimed to be true originalists but do lean in that direction.

Just how clear is the language of the Constitution when it comes to elected officials who have taken an oath of office and then supported a violent uprising against that very sacred document?

Amendment 14 Section 3 could not be clearer: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”

Given Trump’s violent rhetoric, his aggressive orchestration of alternative electors following his clear loss in 2020 to President Joe Biden, and his subsequent efforts to prevent Congress from certifying the results as required in the Constitution, it is clear that Trump cannot “hold any office … under the United States.”

Rather than enforce this inconvenient truth in the Constitution, the justices have ruled that states cannot be the ones enforcing the 14th Amendment. They go so far as to rule that no one can enforce the 14th Amendment without legislation or other acts of Congress.

“This can hardly come as a surprise,” the majority quips as they shoot down the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump’s actions following the November 2020 election have rendered him unqualified for federal office.

Indeed, it is a surprise that states cannot enforce the 14th Amendment.

Who do these justices think brought the case Brown v. Board of Education to their bench in 1954? It was not federal prosecutors, using federal legislation to enforce desegregation of schools in the south. It was citizens, children to be specific, seeking “equal protection” under the 14th Amendment. One of the cases went to state courts, others through federal courts, but never did the Supreme Court deny a case because the state’s courts had no authority to enforce the 14th Amendment. In fact, in some states and some small towns, the wait would have been long for an end to segregation in schools if the Supreme Court had required federal action on the issue.

The court ruled in Brown: “Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

In a similar fashion, earnest Coloradans who were convinced that Trump’s insurrection attempt disqualified him from office sought redress in Colorado courts to enforce the 14th Amendment. We wrote in November that these Coloradans obviously had standing to bring this case and that the courts were the appropriate place to litigate whether Trump’s actions met the definition of “insurrection.”

The concurring opinion by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson made this exact argument while they dissented to the court’s reasoning: “Similarly, nothing else in the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment supports the majority’s view. Section 5 gives Congress the ‘power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.’ Remedial legislation of any kind, however, is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments (including the due process and equal protection guarantees and prohibition of slavery) ‘are self-executing,’ meaning that they do not depend on legislation.”

Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson are arguing for judicial restraint. This isn’t the first time, nor the last time we fear, that the rogue conservative majority on the court will rule as broadly as they possibly can in pursuit of their desired outcome.

That four justices ruled narrowly against employing a novel legal argument on a state-by-state basis to keep an insurrectionist from running for president is being considered a win by Trump’s supporters.

That five justices ruled that the 14th Amendment cannot be enforced by states without federal legislation is a loss for America, a loss for liberty and yet another sign that this court is spiraling out of control with no leadership, no discipline and a clear uptick in partisanship.

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Twin polls from Quinnipiac University and Gallup have recently confirmed the public’s historical disapproval numbers ratings. Gallup first started asking Americans to rate the job the court was doing in September 2000. At that point, 62% of Americans approved. Today, Gallup is at 40% and Quinnipiac is at 36%. Nearly 7 in 10 registered voters think the Court is mainly motivated by politics instead of the law.  And a whopping 63% surveyed would support limiting the number of years a justice can serve on the Court. Yes, please.

Meanwhile, back in their ivory tower, we have witnessed the rise of the most activist court in the past century as the six-member ultra-conservative majority has embarked on a radical path to restructure laws and life across the country by stripping away power from every political entity, but for the Court itself. The Court has shown it will even take sham cases to do so.

Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley’s article described the emergence of the “imperial Supreme Court” by saying, in part, that the Court has taken “significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts. And it has done so using a variety of (often contradictory) interpretative methodologies.” Lemley asserts that the Court “has begun to implement the policy preferences of its conservative majority in a new and troubling way: by simultaneously stripping power from every political entity except the Supreme Court itself.”

That����ap a dangerous precedent for a court that could ultimately determine the future of our democracy after another contested presidential election challenge.

And, then, there’s the Court����ap corruption crisis. The Supreme Court is the only court in the federal judiciary that does not have a formal code of ethics. The justices have failed to create their own code, and the Senate is moving a bill that would compel it to do so, but that will not likely survive.

In response to a long overdue push for ethics reform on the court, rightwing Justice Samuel Alito has taken the controversial position that Congress didn’t create the Court and  “no provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.” This claim lacks merit.

Congress clearly has extensive authority to regulate the Court in a plethora of ways, and, in fact,   Congress has long played a critical role in regulating the Court. For example, Congress has required justices to take an oath written by Congress; they have required them to recuse themselves from cases in certain circumstances; they have changed the size of the court, and have set certain disclosures of financial holding and other sources of income.

Alito failed to declare gifts from conservative billionaire, Paul Singer, after accepting a seat on his private plane, flying to Alaska for a luxury fishing trip. Alito justified his actions by noting that the seat would have been vacant had he not used it. Had Alito chartered the plane, it would have cost him more than $100,000. Putting aside the fact that this was not an acceptable gift, Alito failed to recuse himself from any of the more than 10 cases Paul Singer had before the court after the trip. But Alito would have us believe there is nothing to see here.

Not to be outdone, ProPublica recently reported that fellow rightwing justice Clarence Thomas’ extravagant lifestyle — which has largely been unreported — has been supported by uber-wealthy benefactors who share his ideological views. These benefactors have a strong incentive to keep these reliable votes on the court by making their lives easier rather than letting President Biden and Senate Democrats appoint someone more mainstream.

Thomas has reportedly been on at least 38 destination vacations, 26 flights on private jets, 8 by helicopter, a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events with seats in the skybox; two luxury resort trips in Florida and Jamaica; and, the list goes on.

Then there is his conservative friend (who has reportedly worked to move the judiciary to the right), Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow. Crow secretly bought Thomas’ Mother’s house, who still lives there, from Thomas and later made $36,000 worth of home improvements. Crow also paid for Thomas’ great nephew’s tuition payments for two years, who Thomas was raising as a son.

On Thursday, Thomas disclosed three more trips aboard Crow’s private plane, marking a sharp contrast to the other trips he took with Crow which were undisclosed.

Definitely, nothing to see here, either.

So, what tools do Americans have in their toolbox? First, let����ap not forget that Congress has the power to impeach and remove justices for bad behavior in much the same manner as the president.

Congress can do more than simply call for Thomas and Alito to resign. Second, the lack of transparency and oversight of this court is in stark contrast to every other branch of government.  If the Court won’t write their own code of ethics, it����ap time for Congress to do it for them.

Third, rather than adding more people to the Court, Congress should explore setting term limits for Supreme Court justices.

Each of these measures won’t be easily achieved, but perhaps if we the people, lead the call for these important reforms, Congress may ultimately follow. One day, the pendulum will swing back and conservatives will be calling for these reforms too.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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In a span of 370 days, a Supreme Court reshaped by three justices nominated by President Donald Trump made both a reality.

Last June, the court ended nationwide protections for abortion rights. This past week, the court’s conservative majority decided that race-conscious admissions programs at the oldest private and public colleges in the country, Harvard and the University of North Carolina, were unlawful.

Precedents that had stood since the 1970s were overturned, explicitly in the case of abortion and effectively in the affirmative action context.

“That is what is notable about this court. It’s making huge changes in highly salient areas in a very short period of time,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a law professor at the University of Texas.

As ethical questions swirled around the court and public trust in the institution had already dipped to a 50-year low, there were other consequential decisions in which the six conservatives prevailed.

They rejected the Biden administration’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness program and held that a Christian graphic artist can refuse on free speech grounds to design websites for same-sex couples, despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and other characteristics.

The court, by a 5-4 vote, also sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, although all nine justices rejected the administration’s position.

Affirmative action was arguably the biggest constitutional decision of the year, and it showcased fiercely opposing opinions from the court’s two Black justices, Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

They offered sharply contrasting takes on affirmative action. Thomas was in the majority to end it. Jackson, in her first year on the court, was in dissent.

The past year also had a number of notable surprises.

Differing coalitions of conservative and liberal justices ruled in favor of Black voters in an Alabama redistricting case and refused to embrace broad arguments in a North Carolina redistricting case that could have left state legislatures unchecked and dramatically altered elections for Congress and president.

The court also ruled for the Biden administration in a fight over deportation priorities and left in place the Indian Child Welfare Act, the federal law aimed at keeping Native American children with Native families.

Those cases reflected the control that Chief Justice John Roberts asserted, or perhaps reasserted, over the court following a year in which the other five conservatives moved more quickly than he wanted in some areas, including abortion.

Roberts wrote a disproportionate share of the term’s biggest cases: conservative outcomes on affirmative action and the student loan plan, and liberal victories in Alabama and North Carolina.

The Alabama case may have been the most surprising because Roberts had consistently sought to narrow the landmark Voting Rights Act since his days as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration. As chief justice, he wrote the decision 10 years that gutted a key provision of the law.

But in the Alabama case and elsewhere, Roberts was part of majorities that rejected the most aggressive legal arguments put forth by Republican elected officials and conservative legal advocates.

The mixed bag of decisions almost seemed designed to counter arguments about the court’s legitimacy, raised by Democratic and liberal critics — and some justices — in response to last year’s abortion ruling, among others. The narrative was amplified by published reports of undisclosed, paid jet travel and fancy trips for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from billionaire Republican donors.

“I don’t think the court consciously takes opinion into account,” Grove said. “But I think if there’s anyone who might consciously think about these issues, it’s the institutionalist, the chief justice. He’s been extremely concerned about the attacks on the Supreme Court.”

On the term’s final day, Roberts urged the public to not mistake disagreement among the justices for disparagement of the court. “Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country,” he wrote in the student loans case in response to a stinging dissent by Justice Elena Kagan.

Roberts has resisted instituting a code of ethics for the court and has questioned whether Congress has the authority to impose one. Still, he has said, without providing specifics, that the justices would do more to show they adhere to high ethical standards.

Some conservative law professors rejected the idea that the court bowed to outside pressures, consciously or otherwise.

“There were a lot of external atmospherics that really could have affected court business, but didn’t,” said Jennifer Mascott, a George Mason University law professor.

Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, pointed to roughly equal numbers of major decisions that could be characterized as politically liberal or conservative.

Levey said conservatives “were not disappointed by this term.” Democrats and their allies “warned the nation about an ideologically extreme Supreme Court but wound up cheering as many major decisions as they decried,” Levey wrote in an email.

But some liberal critics were not mollified.

Brian Fallon, director of the court reform group Demand Justice, called the past year “another disastrous Supreme Court term” and mocked experts who “squint to find so-called silver linings in the Court’s decisions to suggest all is not lost, or they will emphasize one or two so-called moderate decisions from the term to suggest the Court is not as extreme as we think and can still be persuaded from time to time.”

Biden himself said on MSNBC on Thursday that the current court has “done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history.” He cited as examples the overturning of abortion protections and other decisions that had been precedent for decades.

Still, Biden said, he thought some on the high court “are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways it hasn’t been questioned in the past.”

The justices are now embarking on a long summer break. They return to the bench on the first Monday in October for a term that so far appears to lack the blockbuster cases that made the past two terms so momentous.

The court will examine the legal fallout from last year’s major expansion of gun rights, in a case over a domestic violence gun ban that was struck down by a lower court.

A new legal battle over abortion also could make its way to the court in coming months. In April, the court preserved access to mifepristone, a drug used in the most common method of abortion, while a lawsuit over it makes its way through federal court.

The conservative majority also will have opportunities to further constrain federal regulatory agencies, including a case that asks them to overturn the so-called Chevron decision that defers to regulators when they seek to give effect to big-picture, sometimes vague, laws written by Congress. The 1984 decision has been cited by judges more than 15,000 times.

Just seven years ago, months before Trump’s surprising presidential victory, then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on the term that had just ended and made two predictions. One was way off base and the other was strikingly accurate.

In July 2016, the court had just ended a term in which the justices upheld a University of Texas affirmative action plan and struck down state restrictions on abortion clinics.

Her first prediction was that those issues would not soon return to the high court. Her second was that if Trump became president, “everything is up for grabs.”

Ginsburg’s death in 2020 allowed Trump to put Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court and cement conservative control.

Commenting on the student loan decision, liberal legal scholar Melissa Murray wrote on Twitter that Biden’s plan “was absolutely undone by the Court that his predecessor built.”

___

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The court’s will make it more difficult for prosecutors to prove criminal charges against people who make threats, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.

The justices ruled that prosecutors in a criminal threats case must prove not only that a person made threatening statements, but also that the person knew the statements were threatening. Colorado’s legal framework previously required prosecutors to prove only the impact the statements would have on a reasonable person, not the speaker’s intent.

“The State must prove in true-threats cases that the defendant had some subjective understanding of his statements’ threatening nature,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority.

In the 7-2 decision, the justices rejected Colorado’s objective standard in favor of a subjective standard that considers the speaker’s state of mind. They cited concerns that the objective standard would chill free speech and encourage people to “self-censor,” afraid of how their words would be perceived.

The high court also established to what degree speakers must know their statements are threatening, finding that prosecutors must show only that the speakers acted recklessly.

“The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence,” Kagan wrote. “…For true threats, recklessness strikes the right balance, offering ‘enough “breathing space” for protected speech,’ without sacrificing too many of the benefits of enforcing laws against true threats.”

Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the majority’s ruling gives too much protection to threatening statements.

The ruling goes against the recommendation of the Department of Justice, which, under President Joe Biden, had argued that Colorado’s objective standard was appropriate, particularly given how the internet and social media have expanded the quantity and types of threats. They warned the case could affect the ability to prosecute threats against public officials, which have increased in recent years.

Weiser, who argued before the Supreme Court in support of Colorado’s objective standard, said in a statement Tuesday that the ruling fails victims of stalking and harassment and creates a “loophole” for stalkers to claim they did not know their words would be perceived as threatening.

“Stalkers cause major harm by their words alone, whether they mean to cause that harm or not,” he said. “But the Court has chosen to prioritize threats over those terrorized by the threats.”

The decision doesn’t overturn Colorado’s stalking law, but does raise the standard for prosecutors who bring cases under the statute, said Christopher Jackson, an appellate lawyer at Holland and Hart.

“The right way to think about it is, there is still a criminal law that prevents this kind of conduct, but now going forward, any prosecution will have to prove recklessness,” he said. “It imposes another element on the crime.”

He added that the ruling likely will affect only a narrow subset of criminal cases in which a defendant’s mental state is at the center of the dispute.

“Practically speaking, it����ap unclear how often this kind of case will occur, because what you have to have is a situation where the defendant knows what they said, but there is some question about whether they knew their words could reasonably be taken as a threat,” he said.

The ruling came out of a Colorado case in which a man convicted of stalking, Billy Counterman, challenged his conviction on the grounds his unsolicited and unwelcome social media messages were protected free speech. His attorneys argued that he was mentally ill and did not mean for the messages to be threatening.

The justices agreed, overturning a Colorado Court of Appeals decision and sending Counterman’s case back to the state’s courts for reconsideration.

Counterman sent a Colorado musician as many as 1,000 messages during a two-year span that began in 2014. She ignored his messages and repeatedly blocked him, but he continued to send messages that implied he was watching the woman, was romantically interested in her and was frustrated by her lack of response.

“You’re not being good for human relations,” Counterman wrote in one message. “Die. Don’t need you.”

Colorado courts found that Counterman’s messages were threats. He was convicted of stalking and sentenced to 4½ years in prison. His appeal then made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Counterman’s attorney, John Elwood, previously argued that ignoring a speaker’s intent chilled free speech and set a dangerous precedent in which speakers could be prosecuted for misunderstandings or statements that are wrongly perceived by the receiver.

In a statement Tuesday, Elwood said he is “gratified that the Supreme Court agreed with Billy Counterman that the First Amendment requires proof of mental state before it can imprison a person for statements that are perceived as threatening.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the system that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children, rejecting a broad attack from some Republican-led states and white families who argued it is based on race.

The court left in place the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted to address concerns that Native children were being separated from their families and, too frequently, placed in non-Native homes.

Tribal leaders have backed the law as a means of preserving their families, traditions and cultures and had warned that a broad ruling against the tribes could have undermined their ability to govern themselves.

The “issues are complicated” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for a seven-justice majority that included the court’s three liberals and four of its six conservatives, but the “bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, each writing that Congress lacks the authority to interfere with foster care placements and adoptions, typically the province of the states. The decision, Alito wrote, “disserves the rights and interests of these children.”

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Colorado native who has emerged as a champion of Native rights since joining the court in 2017, wrote in a separate opinion that the decision “safeguards the ability of tribal members to raise their children free from interference by state authorities and other outside parties.”

The leaders of tribes involved in the case called the outcome a major victory for tribes and Native children.

“We hope this decision will lay to rest the political attacks aimed at diminishing tribal sovereignty and creating instability throughout Indian law that have persisted for too long,” said a joint statement from Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., Morongo Band of Mission Indians Chairman Charles Martin, Oneida Nation Chairman Tehassi Hill and Quinault Indian Nation President Guy Capoeman.

President Joe Biden, whose administration defended the law at the high court, noted that he supported the law 45 years ago when was a Democratic senator from Delaware.

“Our Nation’s painful history looms large over today’s decision. In the not-so-distant past, Native children were stolen from the arms of the people who loved them,” Biden said in a statement.

Congress passed the law in response to the alarming rate at which Native American and Alaska Native children were taken from their homes by public and private agencies.

The law requires states to notify tribes and seek placement with the child’s extended family, members of the child’s tribe or other Native American families.

Three white families, the state of Texas and a small number of other states claimed the law is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause because it was based on race. They also contended it puts the interests of tribes ahead of children and improperly allows the federal government too much power over adoptions and foster placements, areas that typically are under state control.

The lead plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case — Chad and Jennifer Brackeen of Fort Worth, Texas — adopted a Native American child after a prolonged legal fight with the Navajo Nation, one of the two largest Native American tribes, based in the Southwest. The Brackeens are trying to adopt the boy’s 5-year-old half-sister, known in court papers as Y.R.J., who has lived with them since infancy. The Navajo Nation has opposed that adoption.

At last fall’s arguments, several conservative justices expressed concern about at least one aspect of the law that gives preference to Native parents, even if they are of a different tribe than the child they are seeking to adopt or foster.

Among them was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was in the majority Thursday in favor of the tribes. But Kavanaugh injected a cautionary note in a separate opinion focused on the preferences for Native foster and adoptive parents.

“In my view, the equal protection issue is serious,” Kavanaugh wrote, commenting that the race of prospective parents and children could be used to reject a foster placement or adoption, “even if the placement is otherwise determined to be in the child’s best interests.”

The Supreme Court dealt with that issue by determining that neither Texas nor the parents had legal standing to make that argument in this case.

The Brackeens and others can make those arguments in state court proceedings, the justices said.

Matthew McGill, who represented the Brackeens at the Supreme Court, said he would press a racial discrimination claim in state court.

“Our main concern is what today’s decision means for the little girl, Y.R.J . — now five years old — who has been a part of the Brackeen family for nearly her whole life. The Court did not address our core claim that ICWA impermissibly discriminates against Native American children and families that wish to adopt them, saying it must be brought in state court,” McGill said in a statement.

All the children who have been involved in the current case at one point are enrolled or could be enrolled as Navajo, Cherokee, White Earth Band of Ojibwe and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. Some of the adoptions have been finalized while some are still being challenged.

More than three-quarters of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the country and nearly two dozen state attorneys general across the political spectrum had called on the high court to uphold the law.

The Supreme Court had twice taken up cases on the Indian Child Welfare Act before, in 1989 and in 2013, that have stirred intense emotion.

Before the Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their homes and placed with adoptive families, in foster care or in institutions. Most were placed with white families or in boarding schools in attempts to assimilate them.

A little more than four months ago, my husband and I were relishing our early pregnancy and imagining a scary and wonderful new future as parents. Pregnancy brings a list of what-ifs that are terrifying even when everything goes “according to plan.” But what happens when everything doesn’t go perfectly? What if the pregnancy risks that are a 2% or 5% possibility become your reality? What if in the flash of a doctor’s glance, you know that the scary and wonderful prospect of parenthood is turning to scary and devastating?

Those what-ifs happened to us. Our doctor flashed us that glance and explained our situation. And, two days later on the very same day the United States Supreme Court ended the reproductive health protections promised under Roe v. Wade, a second doctor, with sadness and compassion, told us the horrible news that our pregnancy — unplanned and unexpected, but entirely welcome — was indeed part of the tragic tiny percent where things go wrong. The reality of choosing to have an abortion came into focus.

Learning from our doctor that an abortion was an option for us to consider on the same morning Roe was overturned was an almost unthinkable and ironic twist of fate. The dark cloud that rolled over the country rolled right into the doctor’s office with us. We grappled with two interwoven truths: that the Supreme Court had taken away a fundamental freedom for women, and that an ill-fated pregnancy had taken away our dreams of parenthood. The combined reality was a crushing blow.

My dreams and hopes of seeing my incredible husband become an incredible dad, gone. Watching my mom teach my kiddo the same lessons she taught me, vanished. I felt for myself and for the women across the nation hearing the same news on the same day — but not in a state with the same protections for next steps.

Because we live in a state that protects our choice of personal medical decisions, my husband and I were able to make a difficult decision with the help of our doctors that was rooted in our love for one another.

We considered our circumstances and planned to have an abortion, but even with our advantage to access our chosen path, we realized the process would be delayed and involved.

Our doctor scribbled a phone number on a scrap piece of paper and said, “Here, call this number.” Their earliest appointment was a month away. We didn’t even get to how much it would cost before we hung up.

The Supreme Court����ap decision, announced just hours earlier, had already flooded Colorado clinics as others seeking abortions from states with forced-pregnancy laws sought out Colorado’s safe haven.

Our insurance wouldn’t cover the procedure, ruling out many hospitals that help with family planning. But we made more calls and got an appointment on a Friday two weeks later, a delay that could cause medical complications for me.

Would we even be able to get an abortion in the state protected by the law I voted for as a state Senator, and where I’ve spent my career fighting for women’s rights?

That Friday, I was not the only person to get an abortion. Every woman and couple in the clinic had a story and a reason for being there which was unique to them and unknowable to us. They made the choice that was right for them, and while the politicians may demand justification and the reason why, they have no right to ask for it.

I do not know the names of the people waiting quietly in the clinic with us, but I do know that one had her flight home canceled and was struggling to find and afford a place to stay as she also struggled to recover. Another woman leaned on her partner to stand and walk from the room — they embraced and tenderly kissed as they left. Another was waiting for an interpreter to translate her next steps. Another asked the nurses for help ordering food as she was in Colorado alone and unsupported.

That Friday, all the license plates in the parking lot but ours were from other states. That Friday, all the protesters that booed and heckled my husband with hateful conviction as he went to get us coffee had left by the heat of the afternoon — I guess they got uncomfortable and wanted some air conditioning.

The loss of being a parent was tragic but this experience would have been compounded and made exponentially worse if my husband and I weren’t empowered by Colorado law to make the decision best for us. Every person who decides to have an abortion has their own complicated reason that was likely arduously reached.

To any lawmaker who carries a law to restrict a family’s access to abortion, give me a call and convince me why what you did was in service to your constituents. Explain to me why you think you belonged in the room when the doctor told my husband and me that our dream was likely over. Come tell me why you think the government needed to be in the chair next to the doctor as my husband held my hand and I sobbed while the specialist moved the ultrasound to confirm the worst news expectant parents can hear.

Our hyper-politicization of abortion has had poignant and tragic consequences. We’ve stigmatized a safe procedure that saves women’s lives and isolated it from healthcare. This is a political construct, not a medical reality. Abortion is subject to a level of hyperbole, rumor, and mischarecterization that only political litmus tests inspire.

Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Colorado’s own Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett lied to Senators when they called Roe settled law. They repealed the freedom for women and families to make a personal decision in favor of forcing us all to live their extreme ideology, our lives be damned. They introduced the long arm of government into the most private of decisions. The Supreme Court turned our country into a land hostile to women and embraced the hypocrisy of a party fighting for a fetus without a developed heart but not raising a hand to protect a kindergartener from being gunned down and killed in their classroom.

In a nation that sings with pride about the personal freedoms it protects, this personal choice should  be protected broadly, not just in a patchwork of states. This medical procedure should be available nationwide, and not stigmatized. It is health care.

We’ve been living in a post-Roe world for four months and are only weeks away from what will yet again be one of the most consequential elections in our nation’s history, as every election has become. We’ve heard nightmarish stories from across the country as women desperately sought out the care that they needed, while extremists in our government, from state legislatures on up to the US Senate, continue to pass and advocate for near-total abortion bans, many with no exceptions for rape or incest.

But despite this urgency, those with the most power to do something to protect women have failed to. The Senate clings to the antiquated filibuster and congresspeople scoff at their constituents’ fears while women are forced to endure troubled pregnancies and navigate an unfair system of healthcare access with barriers for race, geography, and income.

Yes, on November 8th, we have to vote to protect the rights of women around the country. But we also need to continue to call on our elected leaders to follow Colorado’s lead and step up and govern like they mean it: pass laws that protect abortion access. Because every story matters, this is just mine.

Colorado Sen. Kerry Donovan represents Senate District 5, a district encompassing seven counties across Western Colorado. Donovan and her husband also run The Copper Bar Ranch, a working cattle and beef ranch out of Edwards.

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The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. Views are similar about a requirement that justices retire by a specific age.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the high court issued high-profile rulings including stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion and expanding gun rights. The poll also shows more Americans disapprove than approve of the court����ap abortion decision, with just over half saying the decision made them “angry” or “sad.”

The court, which is now taking a summer break, will return to hearing cases in October with diminished confidence among Americans. Now 43% say they have hardly any confidence in the court, up from 27% three months ago.

Inez Parker of Currie, North Carolina, said she’s among those who strongly favor limits on justices’ service. “I think some of those people have been up there too long. They don’t have new ideas. When you get a certain age and everything you get set in your ways just like I’m set in my ways,” said the 84-year-old Democrat.

Parker said retired justices can “work in their garden, sit on the porch and fan flies or whatever they want to do.”

The Constitution gives federal judges including Supreme Court justices life tenure, but there have been recent calls for change. A commission tasked by President Joe Biden with examining potential changes to the Supreme Court studied term limits among other issues. The commission finished its work last year and its members were ultimately divided over whether they believed Congress has the power to pass a law creating the equivalent of term limits.

Phil Boller, 90, of LaFollette, Tennessee, said he’s not totally opposed to setting a limit on years of service for justices. The Republican who worked in broadcasting and later owned his own lawn care business said that “basically it����ap worked the way it����ap been going and I see see no reason to change that.”

The oldest member of the current court is Justice Clarence Thomas, 74, followed by Justice Samuel Alito, 72. But recent justices have served into their 80s. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served until her death in 2020 at age 87. Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018 at 81. And Justice Stephen Breyer just retired at age 83.

Ginsburg served for 27 years, Kennedy 30 years and Breyer nearly 28 years.

Four new members have joined the court in the last five years, bringing down the average age of the court����ap members. Three justices are in their 60s: Chief Justice John Roberts, 67, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, 68, and Elena Kagan, 62. The remaining justices are in their 50s. Neil Gorsuch is 54, Brett Kavanaugh 57, Amy Coney Barrett 50 and Ketanji Brown Jackson 51.

Another proposal Biden’s committee studied was increasing the number of justices on the court, and the poll shows that proposal evenly dividing Americans. Overall, 34% say they’re in favor, while 34% are opposed and 32% say they hold neither opinion. Democrats are more in favor than opposed, 52% to 14%, while Republicans are more opposed than in favor, 61% to 14%.

The poll also found increased dissatisfaction with the court since three months ago, before the court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a right to abortion.

In the April poll, conducted before a draft of the court����ap decision was leaked, 18% said they had a great deal of confidence, 54% said they had only some and 27% said they had hardly any. Now, 17% say they have a great deal of confidence, 39% only some and 43% hardly any.

Patrick Allen, a Democrat from Logan, Utah, is one of those with hardly any confidence in the court. Allen, 33, said he feels as though justices generally vote on issues based on the party of the president that appointed them. “They’re sticking more to their guns along the lines of their party instead of the Constitution,” he said.

The poll shows the drop in confidence is concentrated among Democrats, adding to evidence that the court����ap decision on abortion worsened and polarized already tenuous opinions of the court. A large partisan gap in views of the court that did not exist before the decision emerged; 64% of Democrats say they have hardly any confidence, up from 27% in April. Another 31% have only some and just 4% have a great deal of confidence — down from 17%.

Among Republicans, however, views of the court have improved. Now, 34% say they have a great deal of confidence, up from 21% in the earlier poll. An additional 47% have only some confidence and 18% hardly any.

Overall, more Americans disapprove than approve of the decision to overturn Roe, 53% to 30%; an additional 16% say they hold neither opinion. On that decision, too, there’s a large divide along party lines — 63% of Republicans approve, while 80% of Democrats disapprove.

The poll of 1,085 adults was conducted July 14-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.