Associate Justice Elena Kagan isn't waiting to get back onto the Supreme Court's bench next month before posing some tough questions.
"Lately, the criticism is phrased in terms of, you know, because of these opinions, it calls into question the legitimacy of the court," Roberts said at a judicial conference in Colorado this month."If they want to say that its legitimacy is in question, they're free to do so. But I don't understand the connection between opinions that people disagree with and the legitimacy of the court.
That view has drawn pushback from critics who say it's only partly about the outcome of individual cases. It's also the case, they say, that the high court repeatedly upheld its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision until former President Donald Trump nominated and won confirmation for three justices, giving conservatives a super majority.
"The thing that builds up reservoirs of public confidence is...the court acting like a court and not acting like an extension of the political process," she said. "I'm not talking about the popularity of particular Supreme Court decisions," Kagan said at the Northwestern event last week."What I am talking about is what gives the people in our country a sort of underlying sense that the court is doing its job."