Justice Kagan Says Supreme Court Has 'Blinded Itself' to How Its Election Rulings Damage Democracy

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Tuesday that the court's rulings on election law have damaged the way American democracy works, telling an audience at Catholic University in Washington that the majority "has kind of blinded itself" to the real-world effects of its decisions.

"The court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effect of their rulings on how the political system works, and has created a democracy that does not work as well as it should," Kagan said, according to Courthouse News Service.

The remarks, delivered at Catholic University's law school less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, were among the sharpest public comments by a sitting justice about the court's own record, the Washington Examiner reported.

Gerrymandering, Money and the Voting Rights Act

Kagan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, has written dissents in cases in which the court declined to let federal judges police partisan gerrymandering, loosened campaign finance rules and narrowed the Voting Rights Act, Courthouse News reported.

She said Tuesday that the state of the political system shows the majority was wrong in those cases. Partisan gerrymanders, she said, set off a "race to the bottom" between the parties that deprives citizens of voting equality and makes a polarized country more so, according to Courthouse News.

"The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare, and they're right," Kagan said.

On the court's recent Voting Rights Act ruling, Kagan said the majority had argued it was not clear that Black political representation would fall, but that in the weeks that followed, Southern states moved to redraw districts to eliminate Black-majority seats, Courthouse News reported.

"If you think about what these opinions do, you kind of have an idea of why they're wrong," she said.

Kagan Says the Court Has Also Pushed Back on Trump

Kagan said the court had removed checks on presidential power, but she also noted that it had ruled against the administration on using the National Guard to quell protests and on restrictions on mail-in voting, according to Courthouse News.

"These were all things that were important presidential priorities," Kagan said. "These were not little things on the margin. These were things that President Trump cared deeply about … It's why the president sometimes really has not very nice things to say about the court and its decisions and about some of my particular colleagues. It's because the court has pushed back."

Even so, she described the court as far more conservative than when she joined it 16 years ago. "This court is deeply conservative and has accomplished and has put forward many things that have long formed part of the conservative legal agenda," she said.

Kagan also recalled the period after Justice Antonin Scalia's death in 2016, when the court had eight members and had to compromise. "We had to listen really hard to each other, and nobody in America thought that the court was in the pocket of any one group or any one party or any one anything," she said. "The court had a kind of legitimacy that helps to create a stable country."

Kagan's remarks come as the court begins a term with 35 cases granted so far, according to SCOTUSblog.

Hold Everyone Accountable.

Sources: Courthouse News Service, "Kagan diagnoses American democracy with a Supreme Court problem" (Oct. 20, 2026): https://www.courthousenews.com/kagan-diagnoses-american-democracy-with-a-supreme-court-problem/ ; Washington Examiner, "Elena Kagan says Supreme Court's recent decisions have hurt democracy" (Oct. 21, 2026): https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/supreme-court/4773558/elena-kagan-supreme-court-decisions-hurt-democracy/ ; SCOTUSblog, October Term 2026 case list: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/term/ot2026/