AOC calls SCOTUS rulings ‘dangerous creep towards authoritarianism’ – but new poll shows more than HALF of Americans agree colleges should end affirmative action and 45% say it was right to Biden’s student loan forgiveness
- Rep. AOC said the latest Supreme Court rulings call into question “legitimacy.”
- New poll shows most Americans agree with three Supreme Court rulings, but also feel judges rule based on politics, not law
- Included in recent rulings is that colleges cannot admit students based on race quotas and that Biden cannot proceed with his student loan forgiveness plan
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the trio of recent Supreme Court rulings casts doubt on the “legitimacy” of the bank’s politicization — and a new poll shows more than half of Americans agree.
The progressive congresswoman denounced the statements released in June as a “dangerous creep toward authoritarianism” and redoubled her desire to limit the power of the federal government’s judicial branch.
In the meantime, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll found that most Americans agree with all three statements compared to those who disapprove.
Supreme Court rulings that have been released include a ruling barring colleges from setting admission quotas, another rejecting President Joe Biden’s proposal to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans and a third affirming that private companies can refuse to same-sex couples.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, best known by her initials AOC, accused the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court of “discrimination” against the LGBTQ community in the last of the three rulings.
Representative AOC said the latest Supreme Court rulings call into question its “legitimacy” — and said the federal judiciary is moving toward “authoritarianism as it pushes to strip the Supreme Court of its power
A new ABC/Ipsos poll shows that most Americans agree with the Supreme Court’s ruling that colleges cannot admit students based on race quotas and violates President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan
While 53 percent of respondents to the latest ABC/Ipsos poll say they think judges rule “primarily on partisan politics,” the majority of Americans still seem to agree with the recent rulings.
The survey found that 52 percent of Americans agree with the statement preventing colleges from using race as a determining factor in college admissions — a practice known as affirmative action. Another 32 percent said they disapproved of the ruling.
The other two rulings saw a wider gap, but still saw approval of the rulings.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed agree that the Supreme Court should strike down student loan forgiveness, while 40 percent disapprove.
The most divisive was the ruling in the case that a web designer was not required to create a wedding website for a gay couple because it went against his religious beliefs against same-sex marriage. While 43 percent approved of the decision, only 1 percent less said they disapproved.
The case upheld an earlier Supreme Court ruling in which a bakery was not forced to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding because it went against the owner’s religion.
Critics believe the ruling should fall under the same discrimination-based laws as gender, race and ethnicity. But the Court argues that it is an infringement of constitutional rights to force a company to supply something that goes against their religion.
Because of former President Donald Trump’s ability to appoint three justices in his time as president, progressives have labeled the Supreme Court as partisan and have proposed wrapping it up now that a Democrat is in office.
Perhaps the most viewed ruling was about challenging President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, which was rejected
In addition, the Supreme Court ruled that the university can no longer introduce quotas that base admissions on an applicant’s race – known as affirmative action, which was initiated to get more minorities admitted to universities
Others, such as AOC, have also proposed weakening the power of the judiciary.
“If the courts continue without any checks on their power, without any balance in their power, then we will begin to see an undemocratic and, quite frankly, dangerous authoritarian power extension in the Supreme Court,” AOC said in an interview with the State of the Union from CNN.
She denounced rulings that came out last year when the Court overturned Roe v. Wade — prescribing federal abortion protections and returning termination of pregnancy decisions to the states.
Now AOC says a conservative on the Supreme Court “rules that discrimination and, quite frankly, depriving LGBTQ people of the United States of full personality and dignity” is okay.
“These are the kinds of statements that point to a dangerous shortcut to authoritarianism and power centralization in the court,” AOC concluded.