Supreme Court Gets a Rare Rebuke, in Front of a Nation

At the State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Obama stated his disagreement with a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). According to article, “Peter G. Verniero, a former justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, said neither end of the exchange helped the prestige of the United States Supreme Court.” “The court’s legitimacy is derived from the persuasiveness of its opinions and the expectation that those opinions are rendered free of partisan, political influences,” Mr. Verniero said. He continued, “The more that individual justices are drawn into public debates, the more the court as an institution will be seen in political terms, which was not the intent of the founders.”