September 16, 2010
Justice Stephen Breyer expressed frustration with popular perceptions of the Supreme Court as a partisan battlefield, making an unusual public statement after a term full of 5-4 splits on politically sensitive issues.
Americans "think we're a group of junior league politicians," he said during a recent interview here. "They think we decide things on the basis of politics. Or, if not politics, on the basis of what we think is good for people, rather than the Constitution. And I think that's wrong."
In its most recent term, the court divided repeatedly along ideological lines, with a bare majority voting to strike down a local handgun ban and restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections.
Justice Breyer, during a conversation in the chambers he keeps at the federal courthouse here, sought to tamp down criticism from some on the left that conservatives led by Chief Justice John Roberts are on an ideological mission to roll back individual rights, while showing "tea-party groups" and others on the right why liberal-leaning justices like him believe they are keeping faith with the framers.
Even when the justices disagree, "all nine of us think we're following the same Constitution that was there in 1790," he said.
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