Pence: Affirmative action was a ‘temporary solution’

(NewsNation) — Another controversial close for the Supreme Court this year has drawn both praise and criticism. Former Vice President and 2024 presidential hopeful Mike Pence on Sunday commented on the court’s decision to overturn affirmative action, striking down race-conscious policies in college admission.

“Affirmative action was a temporary solution, designed to open doors that hadn’t been opened before,” Pence said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” broadcast.

Pence said he expected affirmative action to go away within 25 years.

“It went away more quickly than that,” Pence said. “I think that’s a tribute to our nation.”

His former running mate and now opponent took credit for the move Saturday.

“We appointed nearly 300 federal judges and three great Supreme Court justices. This week, those justices ruled to move our country forward with a merit-based system of education. How big is that,” former President Donald Trump said.

On the other side of the aisle, some Democrats seemed outraged over the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and the court’s decision to block President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.

“Did we just live to see the high watermark of freedoms and rights in this country before they were gradually taken away,” Pete Buttigieg said on CBS.

Some have questioned the validity of the Supreme Court.

“We have justices saying that the Supreme Court is going too far,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told CNN. “If they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and frankly dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court.”

Some of the 2024 GOP field that has eyes for the Oval Office agree with the largely conservative court.

“They are making a lot of wrongs, right,” former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said. “They’ve corrected things on religious liberty. We’re seeing that they’re correcting things on student loans, but the affirmative action is really important.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said: “For decades and decades, the Democratic Party cheered a Supreme Court that went outside the Constitution. When the court makes decisions they don’t like, all of a sudden, the court is not a normal court.”

According to recent polling by The Marquette Law School, 41% of Americans say they approve of the nine justices serving on the high court. That represents a slight downtick from the same poll taken in January, which had 49% approval.