In an era of divisiness, some politicians are trying to change the tone

The U.S. Supreme Court is just as bitterly divided over partisan issues, like abortion, as the rest of the country.

But while justices on opposite philosophical sides may disagree passionately on the nuances of interpreting the U.S. Constitution, at least two of them have found a way to disagree agreeably. 

When the high court is not actively hearing oral arguments, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor meet for lunch as many as four days a week. During that time, they talk about their children or, in the case of Sotomayor’s mother, dealing with the death of a parent. They’ve exchanged gifts at the holidays or for birthdays.

“We share things like what shows you're watching on TV, or serious things that are happening in our family,” Barrett said. “I really think it's that time together that's very important.”

Barrett added that after she was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump in 2020, she wasn’t sure how she would be received by the court. But on her first day, Sotomayor, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, welcomed her. 

Sotomayor “showed up in my office with Halloween candy for my kids, to make a small gesture of kindness and concern,” Barrett said.

Barrett and Sotomayor spoke on Friday as part of an initiative called “Disagree Better,” which was created by the National Governors Association’s chairman, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, and vice chairman, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

“Study after study shows that our social fabric is fraying fast,” Cox said. “Republicans and Democrats increasingly viewed the other side not just as misguided, but as immoral and dishonest. Thirty percent of Americans have ended family relationships because of politics. The proportion of Americans who believe political violence is acceptable has reached new highs. Threats against members of Congress have increased tenfold since 2016—not by 10%, by 10 times,” he said.

However, Cox said, “the good news is this is all based on a lie or at least a misperception. We are actually not as divided. Our views are distorted because we waste too much airtime on combative voices that represent a tiny sliver of the population.”

Each side may see the other as being extremists, Cox explained. But studies show that most of those on opposite sides of the political spectrum do not hold as extreme a view as those on the other side think.

Cox noted on Friday that after a meeting at the White House that morning, governors walked out in small groups. “In almost every group of people talking, there were red and blue governors having conversations together,” he said. 

As part of the "Disagree Better" initiative, governors around the country are taping videos with those of opposing parties. Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, for example, talks with Republican Jack Coburn, mayor of a small rural town in Lonaconing, Maryland. 

"Working together means acknowledging our differences, recognizing different perspectives and finding a better way to disagree,” Coburn said in the video. “We can listen to the other side, ask questions and have important conversations."

Cox, after the discussion with Barrett and Sotomayor, said that he wished a video of the justice’s discussion would be “mandatory” in “every university, every high school. I think every family needs to see what they were talking about.”

Polis noted that some universities are trying to teach students to disagree better. Before taking just such a course at Colorado State University, 44% of students said they felt uncomfortable having conversations with someone they disagreed with on politics. “After the course, 100% said they were either comfortable or very comfortable having conversations where they disagree.” 

Sotomayor recalled during the panel when Justice Elena Kagan was nominated by Obama in 2010. A senator at Kagan's confirmation hearing told her to learn how to shoot a gun.

So Kagan, who is from New York City, asked conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, to take her hunting. “You're gonna teach me how to use a gun,” she told Scalia. 

“She really enjoyed it,” said Sotomayor. 

The justice also shared that it was the first female member of the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, responsible for organizing weekly lunches and movie viewings. Before that, the justices never had lunch together.

“We didn't have a movie theater, but we had a room with the screen, and she would have the Library of Congress send us over Westerns,” Sotomayor said. “We still have fundamental disagreements, and we don't compromise on those things. But there are ways to take the edge off the disagreement.”

The attempts by justices to collaborate go beyond eating lunches or popcorn together.

Sotomayor, for instance, said that when the court takes up a case she will read the legal briefs to form an initial opinion. But when she discusses the case with her law clerks, she instructs them “not to support my intuition because our job is to get things right. I always like to hear both sides of the argument.”

Barrett said she will try when writing the court’s decisions to incorporate as many views on the court as she can. “I'm trying to represent what people said at conferences. I might try [to avoid] writing the opinion more narrowly to enable more people to join it, knowing that if it were written more broadly then some people wouldn't drop off. That's a place where the court is different than the legislature because in the legislature you don't want to compromise.”

What’s overlooked, Sotomayor said, is how often she and Barrett and other justices take the same sides on cases. When Scalia died in 2016, she wrote a tribute to him in the Yale Law Review, noting that they had agreed on 315 of the 430 cases they heard during their time together on the court.

The same sentiment had been shared by Justices Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who were close friends that rang in the New Year and vacationed together. In an interview once, the pair said that they agreed most of the time—on “tax cases,” joked Ginsburg. 

Asked by Route Fifty after the discussion if Cox will start skiing with Democratic legislators, the governor from a mountain state said he does meet regularly with them.

“We have a wonderful relationship and those relationships do matter when you get into those difficult discussions and you have a foundation of trust,” he said. “One of the things we do regularly in politics and civil society today is we demonize the other side. We assume that their argument is not in good faith, but our argument is. I think we would all be better off if even when we can disagree passionately, there’s an understanding that the person on the other side of us is also making a good faith argument.”