Chief Justice John Roberts touted the independence of the federal judiciary as a “counter-majoritarian check” and urged Americans rattled by partisan politics to keep faith with the Constitution in an annual report Wednesday that steered clear of direct discussion of modern controversies.
Roberts’ history-heavy statement made no mention of Donald Trump, nor the intense conflict that has cropped up between federal courts and the White House since his second inauguration nearly a year ago.
Trump has questioned the legitimacy of courts that paused his policies and called for the impeachment of judges who ruled against him.
But that’s part of believing in precedent. It’s giving due weight to precedent, not blind obedience. Poorly decided cases have been overturned before, but what we see today is a society in which it’s believed by right wing groups that any decision they don’t like can be worn down. Obergefell was decided in 2015 and a challenge against it from someone who lost her job that year made its way to the supreme court in 2025. This is because attacking Roe in that way allowed it to be weakened then defeated. Every addition to the court that I remember was asked the same question about Roe and gave the same answer, that it was settled law. You couldn’t make it through the senate confirmation without that. Meanwhile you’ve got one justice who wants to overturn every civil right that cited Roe.
The judiciary weathered the overturning of Steporford, and it can likely weather overturning a lot of the Roberts court decisions, but precedent exists so judges, lawmakers, lawyers, and citizens can understand or reasonably approximate what the law is and so we don’t waste a fuck ton of time and money litigating things we should be able to reasonably predict. These days everything goes to the supreme court because anything goes.
I’ll think about this, I’m getting sleepy right now.