Posted on 03/22/2025 6:47:03 AM PDT by george76
At his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing to be chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts famously invoked America's national pastime in describing his view of the judicial role in our constitutional order: "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire."
If only!
Unfortunately, Roberts' actual career on the high court has been one extensive repudiation of his lofty "umpire" proclamation. In exalting above all other concerns his personal conception of the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court, and by extension the entire judiciary, Roberts has ironically done more than anyone else to delegitimize the courts. His recent wildly out-of-line criticism of President Donald Trump's call for impeachment of a rogue lower-court judge is just the latest example. For the court's own sake, in these politically tense times, Roberts must change course immediately.
Roberts first showed his hand in the landmark 2012 Obamacare case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. As was initially reported by CBS News's Jan Crawford in the immediate aftermath of the decision and subsequently reported in later years by other court watchers such as CNN's Joan Biskupic, Roberts initially intended to rule against the constitutionality of the health care law's individual mandate -- its most controversial feature.
But at some point during the court's deliberations, Roberts changed his mind. He decided that he could throw a bone to the court's conservative bloc by ruling against the mandate on Commerce Clause grounds, which the law's drafters and the Obama administration alike had cited as its constitutional basis. But Roberts threw an even larger bone to the court's liberal bloc, unilaterally opting to rewrite the statute so as to construe the mandate as a "tax" -- which then-President Barack Obama himself had repeatedly told a skeptical public that it was not. Obama's signature domestic achievement was thus upheld.
That is not what a judicial "umpire" calling legal "balls and strikes" looks like. Making matters worse, the timing of Roberts' flip coincided with Obama's spring 2012 Rose Garden speech, in which he ludicrously described the possibility that the Supreme Court could nullify his health care law as "unprecedented" or "extraordinary." Did the chief justice conveniently switch his vote in a historically important case so as to mistakenly attempt to maintain the high court's "institutional integrity" in the face of an imperious president? It certainly seems so.
In the years since Sebelius, there have been any number of additional examples of Roberts ruling in a high-profile case in a way that can only be construed as a clumsy attempt to make "both sides" of the court -- and both sides of the broader American public -- happy. In the 2022 abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which mercifully overturned the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, Roberts notably refused to join the Justice Samuel Alito-written majority opinion, opting to write separately and merely concur in the judgment. It was a classic Roberts move: He argued the court could uphold Mississippi's underlying 15-week abortion ban statute without overturning Roe.
Roberts' Dobbs stunt was legally incoherent to the point of outright intellectual dishonesty, but it was politically convenient for Roberts' idiosyncratic conception of the role of the Supreme Court chief justice -- that of a jurist who should somehow attempt to "rise above the fray" and steer the ship of the court in a way that preserves the court's public image and integrity. But once again: That is certainly not what a judicial "umpire" calling legal "balls and strikes" looks like.
Roberts' pointed criticism this week of Trump's call for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, who last weekend ruled that midair flights deporting Tren de Aragua thugs had to be turned around, is in line with his history of prioritizing -- in ham-handed and self-aggrandizing fashion -- what he believes to be the judiciary's integrity. But on this particular score, Roberts is dead wrong.
Judicial impeachment is a well-established remedy for rogue judicial behavior that goes back to the Jefferson presidency in the early 1800s. It is explicitly countenanced by Article III of the constitutional text, which states that federal judges shall sit only "during good Behaviour." And impeachment is here, there and everywhere a fundamentally political judgment: It is appropriate, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 65, where there has been "abuse or violation of some public trust." That is not a legally justiciable standard -- it is the bailiwick of politicians, who must exercise prudence and discernment.
Roberts' most recent outburst is even more absurd given the specific legal context of Boasberg's standoff with Trump. In this instance, Boasberg ruled against the president's ability to enforce the nation's immigration laws. But the "plenary power doctrine" of constitutional law has long held that the judiciary has no business getting involved when the political branches wish to secure our sovereignty. As the notes to the U.S. government's official online Constitution, available at Congress.gov, state: "(T)he Supreme Court's jurisprudence reflects that ... the Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security."
It seems Boasberg and Roberts need a remedial legal lesson or two.
Fortunately for Roberts, there is something he can do to actually help the judiciary regain credibility in the eyes of the public: He must expedite the Supreme Court's review, and overturning, of outrageous lower-court decisions that are based less in law than they are in paroxysms of frothing Trump hatred.
It is true, as it is often now said, that we are in the throes of a constitutional or legal crisis. It just isn't coming from the direction those claiming as much think it is. The true crisis is coming from an unhinged lower-court judicial insurrection.
If only there were a person uniquely situated to bring these judges to heel and thereby bring the crisis to a halt, thus re-legitimizing the judiciary in earnest. If only!
Well the ump is AWOL.
JOhn Roberts is a worthless POS
Roberts is busy screwing the pooch.
SCOTUS is now a total joke.
Roberts remains unaware of his actual legacy.
Long TDS is a terrible affliction.
Who’s John Roberts?
We need judicial reform.
We need to drop the pretense that “judges aren’t political”. They most certainly are.
I don’t see a solution, but there has to be a way to clean up the system and achieve some sort of level of impartiality.
Personally, I think AI may eventually provide part of the solution. Sure, AI has biases, but these could be corrected over time. John Roberts is biased — he’s been Chief Justice for 20 years with none of his biases corrected over time. So I think AI would likely be better than him.
The Supreme Court became illegitimate under Earl Warren.
The 2010 PPACA decision showed it still has a legitimacy problem, as does the federal judicial system.
However, Congress needs to give Trump better legal tools. There are lots of ‘rat judges and they will block Trump if they arguably claim a basis for doing so.
If the President is the head of the Executive Branch, then the Chief Justice is the head of the Judiciary.
Right now, Roberts is allowing a mob and a group of rogues under his control to run the entire country. Trump is trying to restore the natural order of things in his lane... Roberts needs to take charge in his.
You delegitimized the Supreme Court for good when you upheld Obamacare, John. Resign now while Trump has a chance to replace you.
Josh Hammer is a pretty bright guy.
Those children raped, and/or eaten alive,
on Epstein Island needed fair umpires.
Americans needed domestic Constitutional rules,
and the President THEY SELECTED BY VOTE,
not what has been forced on them by General Malta.
What can be done about this guy? Can he lose his chief justice position and if so, how?
You would try AI. I would first get rid of the vagina seats. The idea that women have to same motivations as men is absurd.
The Court is broken and we are the ones who have broken it.
“”We need judicial reform.
We need to drop the pretense that “judges aren’t political”. They most certainly are.
I don’t see a solution, but there has to be a way to clean up the system and achieve some sort of level of impartiality.””
If there is anything positive that has come out of the lawfare waged against Trump for the past nine years... it’s that the judicial leftist bias has been clearly exposed. The only question now is... what to do about it and how to do it.
Extremely difficult to remove even looney ones
They’re been a few in history
I think they can be impeached for corruption
Any TRO that comes before the SCOTUS without the surety bond will be ruled in favor of the defendant as a defective case.
All TRO’s cases without the surety bond will be declared defective starting today.
Then start to file writs of prohibition to get the cases in front of the correct venue. Contract cases in contract court, personel cases in front of those agencies, etc.
“there has to be a way to clean up the system and achieve some sort of level of impartiality.”
Perhaps the (lead) plaintiff should be able to block 10 percent of the judges in a district from handling their case and the (lead) defendant should be able to block 30 percent of the judges in a district from handling their case, just like lawyers get to unquestionably block jurors in legal cases.
Junk cases should never be seen by the eyes of a judge:
Perhaps a case against the executive department with possible impact of more than one person should require the backing of a Congressional leader of the same political party as the President.
Perhaps private plaintiff environmental cases involving a federal governmental project or a state governmental project budgeted at more than $50 million should require the backing of a Congressional leader or cabinet member if the project was specifically funded by a law.
You can’t personally sue a hospital if it refuses you EMTALA care.
“Any TRO that comes before the SCOTUS without the surety bond will be ruled in favor of the defendant as a defective case.”
I do like the bonding idea but would broaden its application.
also,
But Roberts threw an even larger bone to the court’s liberal bloc, unilaterally opting to rewrite the statute so as to construe the mandate as a “tax” — w>>> By declaring this law as a direct tax it was unconstitutionally created because it has not been administered as required to be apportioned among the states. What a buffoon.
Send this article to the court.
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