Justice Sonia Sotomayor says partisan divide could affect perception of Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Wednesday partisan divisions among lawmakers could affect the perception of the Supreme Court and the confirmation process of judicial nominees, adding that she is concerned the country "might be in crisis" because of political polarization.

"Surely, it has an effect on the appearance of the impartiality of the court," Sotomayor said during a virtual talk with New York University School of Law. "We are far from the times when Supreme Court nominees would receive nearly unanimous approval even in divided congresses and, the more partisan the voting becomes, the less belief that the public is likely to have that Congress is making a merits based or qualifications based assessment of judicial nominees. Is it going to affect directly the court's functioning? It could."