In remarks at a judicial conference, Roberts bemoaned what he characterized as the American public’s misconceptions about the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday defended the Supreme Court from what he believes are misconceptions held by the American people that he and his colleagues are “political actors” who are making decisions based on policy, not law.
Roberts is a member of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which has moved federal law to the right on a number of weighty issues in recent years, such as abortion and gun rights.
The court has also in several cases weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, including in a ruling last week that led to outrage and disappointment on the left.
I used to think that we had to add another 4 seats to the SCOTUS, but I no longer believe that. Now I think we need to add 20 seats to the Supreme Court.
We have allowed SCOTUS to remain so small so that one bad-faith president can negatively alter the course of the nation for half a century. We should increase it to 29 or 31, with rolling term limits, so every president gets to appoint a handful, but never enough to throw off the balance to any great degree.
Make it a seat for each state in the union.
If not political, why political shaped?
Undoing decades of settled law to strip rights from women, minorities, and everyone else. You’re damn right we view you as political. You’re a disgrace to the law and should be impeached yesterday.
“Settled law” is such a cop out. If there is any ambiguity, any question, the law should be rewritten. Anything “decided” can be “undecided”, why take the chance?
Of course they’re political, but the legislative should be drafting legislation at a quality that the SC only CAN touch it very lightly.
The whole process is broken, I guess is my point, and SC latitude is a symptom of shitty and lazy legislators.
That’s bullshit, there’s always room for interpretation of any law. Especially when laws start overlapping and someone has to decide which law takes precedence.
The real failure of the US political system is that voters that were stupid enough to believe that uncompromising is the same as strength. Once bipartisanship collapsed, the only way to get anything done was through the courts because as soon as any law passed someone somewhere sued to stop it. The courts became political because all laws passed through them.
This happened because Republicans realized their actual policies are unpopular and don’t work, so they have specifically been stacking courts with conservative judges for decades so an unelected cabal of rich assholes get to decide all the laws in the country.
Spare us your denial asshole. We are knee deep in the bullshit you have created already.
Oh, then give us back voting rights, abortion, and presidential accountability
Sorry, the best they can do is gaslight while they pass more regressive rulings via the shadow docket.
His name will forever represent the most corrupt SCOTUS in history, and he’s trying to mitigate that despicable legacy.
Just like PEDOnald will represent the worst president in history - at least so far.
He better be the worst in history, we couldn’t survive anyone worse.
To put things in perspective.
About 40% of the then population of the American colonies were Patriots and fought against the British in the revolutionary war. The war itself functioned like a civil war.
Roughly 40% of the population of the current United States supports Trump, not perfectly unwavering support but pretty staunch nonetheless. The remaining 60% are too busy thinking that their problems are the ones that need to be addressed first and a staggering number of those people are perfectly willing to throw away decent compromise simply because they weren’t perfectly satiated.
All of this to say: Trump is the tip of the iceberg.
The Republican justices thought December was too close to the election to do anything about Texas’s gerrymandering that favored white poeple/Republicans, but somehow last week wasn’t too close to the election to shoot down Louisiana’s changes that boosted minorities. That’s pretty clearly policy at work, not the law.
If you don’t want to be seen as political actors, don’t act like political actors.
Just a reminder that between his Ivy League connections, his Reagan/Bush services, and Chief Justice Rehnquist’s untimely demise, Mr. Non-Political-Actor here went from mere well-placed attorney to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in less than five years, mostly by way of his work on Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Not a political actor, lol.
What does he think he’s doing by constantly complaining about this?
Justices definitely consider their words before speaking. What could possibly be the reason beyond letting off steam… repetitively and publicly?
Is it to tamp down public criticism of the court? If so, who cares? It won’t work, and they have lifetime appointments.
Is it out of guilt because the assertion is obviously factually untrue?
Maybe some of these guys just watch way too much Fox News and conservative media. They’ve been airing grievances just like these outlets. LOOKING AT YOU ALITO
Chief Justice John Roberts wrongly says some bullshit that is wrong.
… Perhaps stop acting like them then
Roberts, in a hot-dog costume, trying to figure out who did this
Oh my sweet summer child.
I mean, if he actually believes that. Which I don’t think he does.
