ACTL Denounces Remarks by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Targeting Supreme Court Justices

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA (May 3, 2026) – The American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL) condemns the recent statement by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries attacking the six U.S. Supreme Court Justices who formed the majority opinion in the Supreme Court’s recent decision involving the Voting Rights Act (Louisiana v. Callais). As we have stated many times before, any citizen, including a member of Congress, has the right to express disagreement over the substance of a Supreme Court ruling. Disagreements between the Congressional Branch and the Judicial Branch are not uncommon, and many members of Congress have criticized decisions of the Supreme Court in harsh terms.

But when Minority Leader Jeffries referred to the authors of that decision as the “corrupt conservative majority,” he crossed an important line and his language falls outside the bounds of acceptable conduct. Such extreme rhetoric erodes public confidence in the independence of the judiciary and suggests, inappropriately, that decisions emanate from corrupt motives. If citizens are led to believe that a majority of the Supreme Court Justices are corrupt, it undermines public faith in our system of justice and the Rule of Law is diminished.

This is not a partisan issue. We recognize that both sides of the political spectrum have crossed this line in the past by personally attacking judges when they are unhappy with the substance of a ruling. But all of us, especially our leaders, can do better. We should show respect for the justices on the Supreme Court along with the rest of our judiciary and not convert substantive disagreements into ad hominem attacks. Such unsupported personal attacks have no place in our system of justice.

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