In an end-of-year message, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a warning that elected officials had better remember to respect the Court’s authority, OK, because once you go around talking about ignoring court orders, well then that’s not good for the rule of law. Many believe it was a pointed reminder to the incoming Trump administration, particularly since Trump himself has been talking about doing all sorts of things that presidents don’t actually have the power to do, like deporting everyone he doesn’t like and letting Elon Musk eliminate entire Cabinet departments at will.
In particular, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus saw an explicit warning to Vice President-elect JD Vance (gift link) who has made several comments suggesting that Trump could just ignore any court orders that were obviously invalid, because he’ll be president, right?
In his mimeographed Christmas newsletter year-end-report, Roberts wrote about the importance of judicial independence, recalling an old-timey edict from King George III that henceforth, colonial judges would serve “at the pleasure of the Crown,” and that everyone had to write the letter s as an f sometimes, “juft for ye Lulz.” That was tyranny, obvioufly, and Americans wouldn’t ftand for it, so knock it off with the threats to go off and do what you want.
Roberts wrote that the judiciary depends on the other branches of government to uphold it, and notes that administrations have complied with courts even when decisions don’t go their way, and good thing, too, because Brown v. Board of Education got the federal backup it needed, mostly.
“Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”
Says Marcus, Roberts probably had in mind comments by Vance, who breezily suggested on a 2021 podcast that Trump could ignore court rulings if he really needed to:
“If I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. […] Replace them with our people. And when the courts — because you will get taken to court — and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
Vance repeated basically the same thing in an interview with George Stephanopoulos last February, also before Vance got the nom, Vancesplaining that
“The president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should. That’s the way the Constitution works. It has been thwarted too much by the way our bureaucracy has worked over the past 15 years.”
But don’t worry, Vance added, because Trump would only do that if the courts issued “an illegitimate ruling,” making up examples like the Supreme Court overruling Trump on whether he could fire a general, and that would never happen. Unless of course Trump had other things he needed to do to “control the government as he thinks he should,” and the Court said no. Clear enough?
In any case, Roberts was probably not talking about Trump and Vance at all, because everything Trump does is legal by virtue of the fact that Trump did it.
And you know, there’s no way to enforce that either when it comes right down to it, so let’s not get too worked up over this, OK?
In conclusion, the kitchen floor seems quite cool and inviting at the moment, we shall lie upon it now.
[Supreme Court / Politico / WaPo (gift link)]
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