The chief justice defends court’s impartiality after decisions on abortion, presidential immunity and voting rights
US chief justice John Roberts has insisted supreme court judges are not “political actors” amid outrage over its recent decision undermining the Voting Right Act, and other moves that have benefited Donald Trump and his allies.
Roberts leads a court on which conservatives have held a six-justice majority since 2020, and handed down a series of decisions that have upended longstanding precedent and, in Trump’s second term, allowed many of his policies to take effect, at least temporarily.
Last week’s decision on the Voting Rights Act has greenlit a scramble by Republican-led states to enact new congressional maps that will break up districts drawn to elect Black lawmakers, who tend to be Democrats. That may amount to a major blow to the party’s long-term chances of controlling the US House of Representatives.
The court has also expanded use of a fast-track process known as the “shadow docket” to temporarily pause lower court rulings against the Trump administration, including his mass deportation policies and gutting of federal departments.
41 Comments
grue@lemmy.world · 115 pts · 117d
I can't figure out who said it first to cite it, but there's a saying that goes:
Well, for Roberts, there are two kinds of SCOTUS decisions: the ones he agrees with and "political."
Asafum@lemmy.world · 68 pts · 117d
Texas gerrymandering case that would benefit Democrats in December: even though the map is unconstitutional we can't change the map, it's too close to an election.
Louisiana gerrymandering case this month that would benefit Republicans: the map must change because it's unconstitutional!
John Roberts: We'Re NoT PoLiTiCaL!
....
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world · -16 pts · 117d
It was the Louisiana governor who decided to act on it, it wasn't mandated by the court.
The court is still political, but in this case it wasn't them.
ryper@lemmy.ca · 35 pts · 117d
No, it's still on them.
The court broke with the normal timeline to let Louisiana hurry up and do its thing. When, again, December was too close to the election to do anything about Texas's unconstitutional map.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 117d
Ah, well i was definitely wrong then.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 117d
Overturning the VRA was clearly political, and clearly done because republicans are losing.
Hope he gets flushed like the squeaky little shit he is.
mkwt@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 117d
In this case, John Roberts and company decided to issue the judgement immediately over the objection of the losing party. This move seemingly facilitates Louisiana's effort to switch maps even after voting has already started.
Meanwhile, just 2-3 years ago, Roberts said that Alabama had to continue using illegal maps because we couldn't disrupt an election cycle that was less than 6 months away. Just a few months ago, this court said that Texas can't be forced to change maps 4 months before election.
The only real distinguishing principle that you could use to predict these decisions is which political party benefits from the decision.
Even if the VRA decision had some principled reasoning on the merits, all of this posturing on the timelines is clearly nakedly partisan.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 117d
All that, too, yeah.
though I'd state that the VRA had not only been good law, but settled as good law in the courts. Like, at this point, I wouldn't be shocked if they decided the 13th amendment was something to be overturned.
sportsjorts@lemmy.zip · 31 pts · 117d
This is the most corrupt, illegitimate, and down right treasonous court there has ever been in the history of the U.S.
kikutwo@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 117d
Embarrassment to the legal profession.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -11 pts · 117d
He's the Radical Center. You aren't even fully into embarrassment territory until you get over to Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas.
Zaktor@sopuli.xyz · 11 pts · 117d
John Roberts is very much not the radical center. He's a conservative operator through and through, but will sometimes throw the liberals a bone for optics when it doesn't matter so he can take big swings like this when it does.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 116d
Sure sounds like the center to me.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -9 pts · 117d
He's squarely at the center of DC political opinion. The Third Way Coalition and the Bloombergcrats could not have designed a more appealing SCOTUS judge in a lab. He received wide bipartisan support during his confirmation and has been lauded by leaders in both parties on a routine basis.
You're describing the entire Clinton wing of the liberal party.
73ms@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 116d
The more troubling turns are far more recent than his nomination so him having bipartisan support back then (as tended to be the standard) does nothing for this argument. I don't believe for a second that the Democratic party is happy with the clear bias he has shown by pushing through anything the Republicans want and obstructing the Dems. Especially not when it's Trump he's enabling.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 116d
"No one could have predicted that a groomed acolyte of William Rehnquist would make a shitty SCOTUS judge" is some Democrat Lobbyist tier logic.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 117d
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining
Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 117d
The Supreme Court is illegitimate
orbitz@lemmy.ca · 22 pts · 117d
John Roberts gaslights nation from the supreme court.
No no we're not partisan you're just looking at it wrong. Not like we twisted our arguments and disregard any precedent so our donors...I mean fellow citizens have proper rulings. Oh nice RV Clearance I hope I get the upgraded one.
Holy crap that RV was worth $270k in 1999? Damn.....and that long ago. I hadn't really read up on the story I thought the RV thing was more recent and well not as much as my townhouse was 10 years ago.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 117d
MFW me and my chums get sweet cars and cash money in exchange for making the world a worse place to live
Jikiya@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 117d
He's either lying to himself, or just lying to us, but there's nothing about this court that's apolitical.
73ms@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 116d
They must know what they're doing because they're engaging in acts that are clearly exceptional in the history of the court.
DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 117d
Anyone who still thinks democracy is still even slightly alive in the USA is delusional.
73ms@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 116d
the midterms and what happens after that will be a test of that but I wouldn't declare it dead yet. Just like recent events have shown Orban did not manage to kill Hungary's democracy in his 16 years of power.
At the same time Trump and the Republicans are certainly moving much faster than Orban was so I'm definitely not saying it will take as long as that if they manage to finish the job.
DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 116d
They have already thrown out the results of a primary because they don't like them. They're redistricting like crazy to their own benefit right now. They've already clawed back decades of voter equality laws.
The midterms are already completely compromised and their outcome is already absolute bullshit.
No, it's dead.
73ms@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 115d
Democracy isn't dead even when the system has been gamed to an extent if there's still a way to win even unfair elections. Hungary is a very recent example of that. Poland is another from a few years back. It'll be dead if they ever get to a point where it's like Russia and the results are that in every election Putin gets a 99% victory but until they do elections are a viable way to fight back.
zd9@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 117d
John Roberts can be proud of his legacy, that he destroyed the American Empire and eroded the rule of law from the top down.
bagsy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 117d
Yep, his legacy is magna carta levels of fuckery. It will be in history books forever.
LillyPip@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 116d
HAhahahahaha.
ceenote@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 117d
Maybe if I were a legal scholar I'd be able to recall a historical Supreme Court that's done more damage to the democratic process than the Roberts court, but I'm not so I can't.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 117d
Hapankaali@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 117d
H
2O molecule insists water isn't wet after torrential storm.Etterra@discuss.online · 5 pts · 116d
Cool story bro.
bradorsomething@ttrpg.network · 5 pts · 116d
Roberts should just accept that his court is one of the three pillars in the collapse of the US into a middle power in the next 25 years.
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 117d
Every single photo of Queef Justass Roberts looks like he fears for his life. Good. May he always have a reason to look over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable life.
wjrii@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 117d
This is one of those silly little games. When your entire framework for analysis depends on certain political principals, you can then be coy and pretend that the results that follow are not political, because after all they simply follow with impeccable legal reasoning from a closely held judicial philosophy. Of course, where do those closely held judicial philosophies come from? Why, the judge's instincts about policy priorities, their reaction to the flow of Constitutional Law as they studied it or, in the case of Thomas, what Harlan Crow pays him to think. In the case of someone like Roberts, you're playing the long game so being disciplined about how you apply your framework means Trump only get 90% of what he wants and therefore you can say shit like "we're not political" with a straight face.
To be fair, all sides have agendas that inform their thinking. Some agendas are just way more evil than others.
Zaktor@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 117d
At this point I think they've pretty much abandoned any trappings that they were just following a judicial philosophy (that just happened to be good for conservative politics). Their recent rulings don't have a consistent philosophy other than "Republicans should win". Precedent doesn't matter, their own attestations don't matter, originalism doesn't matter. They'll rule the same basic case two ways if one is brought by Republicans and the other Democrats.
Remember the "major questions doctrine" they invented so they can decide the text of laws don't matter if the result is a big change? That seems to be MIA when Trump does wild stuff by executive order alone. Now it's all just deferring to the executive.
Gumbyyy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 116d
This idiot is high on his own supply
Fedizen@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 116d
He lyin
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 115d
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 112d
🤣