Here are 5 damning reasons why the US Supreme Court’s reputation has sunk to historic lows

The U.S. Supreme Court's already-battered reputation suffered even more when ProPublica, on April 6, published a bombshell report revealing that "for over 20 years," Justice Clarence Thomas has "been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow" and failed to disclose that information. In response, Sen. Dick Durbin — the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee — is calling for an "enforceable code of conduct" for justices. And progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), in a blistering tweet, wrote, "This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached. Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts Court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights."

For decades, the High Court was applauded by civil libertarians for the many ways in which it advanced the cause of democracy — from protections for journalists in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) to victories for reproductive rights in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973). Republicans played a role in that; Chief Justice Earl Warren was a life-long Republican and an appointee of GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And Justice Anthony Kennedy, who advanced protections for gay rights in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), was a right-wing libertarian appointed by President Ronald Reagan (Kennedy retired in 2018).

But under its current radical-right supermajority, the High Court has found its reputation eroding considerably. According to Gallup, public approve of the Court sunk to 40 percent in 2022.

READ MORE: Christian nationalists' end game may not be abortion and Roe v. Wade

Here are five reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court's reputation has suffered so badly.

1. The Dobbs ruling and Roe v. Wade's demise

With its wildly unpopular 5-4 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the High Court overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years and ended abortion as a national right. Thomas, to make matters worse, argued that the Court should also "reconsider" Griswold v. Connecticut — the Warren Court's 1965 right-to-privacy ruling that made contraception a national right for married couples — as well as Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges.

2. Ginni Thomas trying to overturn the 2020 election results

After the 2020 presidential election, Justice Thomas’ wife, GOP activist Ginni Thomas, aggressively promoted the Big Lie — the debunked conspiracy theory that the election had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump. And in a series of text messages to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, she did everything she could to get the election results overturned — never mind the fact that now-President Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million in the popular vote and picked up 306 electoral votes. Yet Justice Thomas refused to recuse himself from a case involving the January 6, 2021 insurrection and the 2020 election.

3. One-third of the justices were appointed by an ex-president who is now facing criminal charges

Although Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the United States' last eight presidential elections, they are a minority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and half of those six were appointed by Trump — the most scandal-plagued president in U.S. history. One-third of the High Court (Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett) is comprised of justices who were appointed by an ex-president who was impeached twice and has been indicted on 34 criminal counts by a Manhattan grand jury.

READ MORE: Political experts break down the Supreme Court's crisis of legitimacy

Trump was arraigned, booked and arrested on Tuesday, April 4, and the Manhattan DA's case may be followed by more indictments. Trump is facing two criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith as well as a one criminal investigation by Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

4. Mitch McConnell refusing to consider Merrick Garland's nomination

Although there is now a considerable amount of bad blood between Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), both of them played key roles in the Supreme Court's move to the far right. McConnell was Senate majority leader when far-right Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016 and then-President Barack Obama nominated centrist Democrat Merrick Garland (now U.S. attorney general). Obama didn’t go liberal/progressive with that nomination; he made it clear that he was more than willing to meet McConnell halfway by choosing a very middle-of-the-road nominee.

Regardless, McConnell refused to even consider Garland; he kept that seat open until 2017, when Trump was president and nominated Gorsuch. McConnell's argument against considering Garland in 2016 was that Obama had no business nominating a Supreme Court justice during a presidential election year. Yet after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 not long before the election, McConnell did everything he could to ram Barrett's nomination through the U.S. Senate. McConnell's ruthless manipulation of the U.S. Supreme Court did a lot to damage its reputation, which continued to suffer when, in 2022, all three of the Trump appointees McConnell supported (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett) voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs case.

5. Justice Thomas wants to 'reconsider' protections for gay rights and contraception

The far-right Justice Thomas is a vehement critic of right-to-privacy rulings in general, and he has become increasingly influential on the High Court. Thomas' disdain for reproductive freedom goes beyond abortion; he believes that Griswold was wrongly decided, and if Griswold were overturned, that would pave the way for states to pass laws banning the use of contraception. And he would no doubt vote to overturn the gay-friendly protections of Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges as well if given a chance.

Thomas was a dissenter in Lawrence — which in 2003, struck down a Texas sodomy law and by extension, similar laws in other states — as well as Obergefell, which made same-sex marriage a national right. And he maintains that Lawrence and Obergefell, like Roe and Griswold, were wrongly decided.