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.
I can’t figure out who said it first to cite it, but there’s a saying that goes:
There are two genders: male and political.
Two races: white and political.
Two sexual orientations: straight and political.Well, for Roberts, there are two kinds of SCOTUS decisions: the ones he agrees with and “political.”
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining
Texas gerrymandering case that would benefit Democrats in December: even though the map is unconstitutional we can’t change the map, its 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!
…
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.
No, it’s still on them.
The voters who initially challenged Louisiana’s map asked the justices last week to speed up the usual 32-day period between when a ruling is announced and when the Supreme Court clerk formally passes the decision down to a lower court. They wrote that “time is … of the essence” with this year’s elections approaching quickly, and said the issue needs to be returned to the district court so it can “oversee an orderly process” to fix Louisiana’s maps.
On Monday, the high court granted that request, writing that the court’s typical 32-day wait period is “subject to adjustment” by the justices.
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.
Ah, well i was definitely wrong then.
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.
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.
Overturning the VRA was clearly political, and clearly done because republicans are losing.
Hope he gets flushed like the squeaky little shit he is.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is the most corrupt, illegitimate, and down right treasonous court there has ever been in the history of the U.S.
Anyone who still thinks democracy is still even slightly alive in the USA is delusional.
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.
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.
H2O molecule insists water isn’t wet after torrential storm.
MFW me and my chums get sweet cars and cash money in exchange for making the world a worse place to live
The Supreme Court is illegitimate
He’s either lying to himself, or just lying to us, but there’s nothing about this court that’s apolitical.
They must know what they’re doing because they’re engaging in acts that are clearly exceptional in the history of the court.
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.
