One might argue that the most successful American politician this century has been U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. But wait, you say, he’s a judge, not a politician. True, but he and his conservative colleagues have a political agenda and they have fulfilled it with impressive success.
The court was already tilting conservative when Roberts was appointed and became the chief justice in 2005. It has become much more so in recent years since the appointment of three justices by President Trump has given the court a conservative six-justice supermajority.
The court has some impressive right-wing achievements. For instance, they have shredded the Voting Rights Act and restricted affirmative action in higher education. They have expanded gun rights and unleashed corporate spending in elections.
They have greatly expanded presidential power, offering wide criminal immunity to the president and allowing him to fire nearly all heads of agencies, a power formerly restricted to Congress. According to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor there is now a “law-free zone around the president. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”
Perhaps their greatest coup was overturning the famous Roe vs Wade decision that gave women the right to abortion. The latest ruling has facilitated a spate of anti-abortion laws in red states. The court continues to advance religious interests in other areas.
Conservatives are of course delighted with the court. Conservative law professor Robert Luther III observed, “The Roberts court is the most conservative court in 100 years…. While conservatives may not have won every major policy battle at the court, the consensus is they have won the war.”
When America’s founding fathers put their constitution together, they established three arms of government: the administrative, the legislative and the judicial. The idea was that the trio would balance each other out—the famous theory of checks and balances.
The system has lost its balance. A president excessively empowered by the Supreme Court becomes increasingly authoritarian as a docile Congress betrays its constitutional duty to check its counterparts.
Chief Justice Roberts insists that the court is apolitical, that its decisions are rooted solely in the constitution, despite the right-wing agenda it has pursued. “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules,” he has said. In light of the court’s decisions on Roe and the Voting Rights Act many women and minorities might disagree.
Ironically Roberts, a moderate conservative, is having trouble keeping his more right-wing colleagues in line. The court’s deliberations increasingly deteriorate into feuds between the more radical conservatives, particularly Bush appointees Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, and the three liberal justices. Ethics questions regarding Alito and Thomas’ ties to billionaire donors with business before the court are also causing Roberts grief.
The court’s rulings and its behaviour have brought public opinion to historic lows. Proposals for reform include adding more liberal members to offset the conservative bias; term limits (the judges currently serve for life); and regularizing appointments across presidential terms to maintain political balance.
All this is too late to preclude Chief Justice Roberts and his conservative colleagues from “winning the war.” He can look back on his 21 years on the court with considerable satisfaction. Few, if any, American politicians have been as successful. And all this without even having to run for office.