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john roberts
US Supreme Court Justices Should Be Deadly Ashamed for What They Have Done to Homeless People
Let me tell you this: No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be homeless. No one says to themselves, “How fun would it be for my kids and my family to live in a tent without food, water, school, or transportation?”
Aug 11, 2024
I listened with profound sadness to the recent Supreme Court decision Grants Pass v. Johnson, which opens the door for people to be arrested simply for lacking shelter. This decision makes it legal for local governments to target, fine, and even incarcerate people who fall asleep in public areas, regardless of whether there’s safe, accessible shelter available.
Where’s the compassion? Where’s the justice?
I know what it’s like to be without a place to call home. In the years before the pandemic, my husband and I were working hard to buy a house for our children and the animals we rescued. I’d overcome an opioid addiction. We had a small business and were starting to achieve our dreams.
But when the pandemic hit, we lost our business, and our debts quickly mounted. We’d nearly completed the purchase of the house we’d been renting, but we lacked the money to transfer the deed. The owner of the deed decided to evict us.
We live in a small, rural West Virginia town where only two shelters are available—and none that would take our pets. So we lived in a tent with our children and animals for three months.
I’m deeply saddened that our leaders would criminalize people suffering poverty, as if we were living in a Charles Dickens novel.
Losing your home is incredibly destabilizing. Without a fixed address, you can lose benefit payments, official mail, jobs, and other critical opportunities. When I was evicted, I didn’t have time to switch over my license plate to my new vehicle, which caused me to lose my license. I still haven’t been able to regain my driving privileges.
We had to walk long distances for food and water, and we had no way to shower. My children had to change schools, and the emotional strain on them caused behavioral and mental health challenges that no child should have to experience.
We survived with help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. We got a tiny amount of cash assistance from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program and health care through Medicaid.
We were eligible for housing assistance, but the wait was impossibly long due to the lack of available affordable housing. That’s not just a problem in West Virginia—the United States has a shortage of more than seven million affordable housing units for people with very low incomes.
Let me tell you this: No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be homeless. No one says to themselves, “How fun would it be for my kids and my family to live in a tent without food, water, school, or transportation?”
The owner of the deed to our house finally relented and reduced the deed fee so we could take possession of our house and move back home. But so much damage had been done to the kids already—and we lost most of our rescued animals.
Once housed, I finished my Masters in Public Administration. But with a felony conviction from my earlier days suffering through addiction, finding a job is challenging. My husband works but has medical challenges. We live paycheck to paycheck, hoping another disaster won’t put us out on the street.
Things need to change for families like mine. The Supreme Court’s cruel decision to penalize people who are suffering is a big step in the wrong direction. How is fining and arresting people who are too poor to pay going to help?
Here’s a better idea. We need to invest in affordable housing, ensure people are paid living wages, and support struggling families with a robust safety net.
I’m deeply saddened that our leaders would criminalize people suffering poverty, as if we were living in a Charles Dickens novel. Our laws must be better, and we must hold our officials accountable. We work hard at doing the right thing—they should, too.
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The Supreme Court’s Billionaire Buddies Just Made Your Life Worse
The assault by the six right-wing justices on the Chevron doctrine is an assault on everyday people, carried out on behalf of corporations and the Court’s wealthy benefactors.
Jul 13, 2024
Last month, the Supreme Court broke with four decades of precedent and overturned Chevron deference, a cornerstone of administrative law that has been cited by federal courts over 18,000 times. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on party lines in the cases Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce, eliminated a judicial doctrine that had long instructed federal courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous or unclear laws passed by Congress, rather than have judges act as regulatory policy-makers.
Chevron deference was established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council for two main reasons. First, because federal agencies are staffed with career civil servants and subject matter experts like scientists, researchers, and data analysts who understand the nitty-gritty details of regulatory policy-making far better than any given judge. Second was the importance of democratic accountability and the separation of powers, with Justice John Paul Stevens writing in the Chevron decision that “federal judges—who have no constituency—have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do.”
In her blistering dissent for Loper Bright, Justice Elena Kagan excoriated the Court’s right-wing majority for “giv[ing] itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law.” The Court itself had inadvertently showcased the danger of having judges act as regulatory experts a day earlier, when Justice Neil Gorsuch repeatedly confused the air pollutant nitrogen oxide with the anesthetic nitrous oxide (more commonly known as “laughing gas”).
But Chevron’s repeal is no laughing matter. Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Curiously, Chevron was once celebrated by conservatives (including the late Antonin Scalia), as it allowed the Reagan administration to continue its industry-friendly regulatory approach unimpeded by the more liberal federal courts at the time (the DC Circuit ruling overturned by SCOTUS in Chevron was written by then-circuit judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg). But over the past decade, as Democrats regained control of the executive branch and used Chevron deference to check corporate power, conservatives have changed their tune. Aided by the GOP’s packing of the courts with Federalist Society alumni, the conservative legal movement and Big Business now see the unelected judiciary as the best long-term venue for dismantling the administrative state.
Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Their most powerful ally in this effort has been Justice Clarence Thomas, a former supporter of Chevron doctrine whose about-face has been equally opportunistic. According to The Lever, Thomas—who wrote a landmark opinion upholding Chevron in 2005—began working to overturn the doctrine after he and his wife received lavish undisclosed gifts and financial support from wealthy conservative benefactors, including real estate mogul Harlan Crow and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Records unearthed by ProPublica have also revealed that Thomas was invited to fundraising events held by fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch, whose donor network has long sought the overturning of Chevron.
These wealthy benefactors played a hidden role in the successful overturning of Chevron this term by using the disputes about federal fishing fees in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases as stalking horses against the doctrine. Petitioners in both cases were represented pro bono by lawyers with close ties to the Koch network. In Loper Bright, herring fisherman Bill Bright was represented by three lawyers who also work for Americans for Prosperity, one of the Koch Network’s most prominent organizations. In Relentless, the petitioners were likewise represented free of charge by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a right-wing litigation group that has received over $5 million from Koch-affiliated organizations and $4 million from Leonard Leo’s dark money groups.
The Court’s power brokers have also used amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs to engage in judicial lobbying. In Loper Bright and Relentless, we found 19 examples of this practice. Right-wing think tanks Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Texas Public Policy Foundation—who all filed anti-Chevron doctrine amicus briefs in Loper Bright—have received millions in donations from Koch organizations. The Board of Trustees for the Manhattan Institute, another Koch-funded Loper Bright amicus filer, is chaired by Justice Samuel Alito’s wealthy fishing buddy Paul Singer and counts Harlan Crow’s wife Kathy among its members. Leonard Leo has similarly bankrolled several amicus filers, including the Mike Pence-led Advancing American Freedom, the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, and (conspicuously) the recently-launched fishing industry lobby group NEFSA.
Despite these flagrant conflicts of interest, neither Justice Thomas nor Justice Alito recused themselves from Loper Bright or Relentless. In fact, the only Justice to recuse from either Chevron case was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who had participated in oral arguments for Loper Bright while serving as a circuit judge.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term.
The Loper Bright decision is already bearing fruit for its corporate supporters. Just hours after the decision, Eastern District of Texas Judge Sean D. Jordan cited it in his decision to partially block a Department of Labor rule that would have made over 4 million workers eligible for overtime pay. Loper Bright has also been cited in at least four other legal challenges against the DOL’s protections for tipped and gig workers, as well as a new lawsuit filed by three New Jersey hospitals against HHS rules governing Medicare reimbursement. Experts at the Center for American Progress have outlined the many other regulatory protections that could be at risk post-Chevron, including fair housing and anti-discrimination rules, relief for student borrowers, the EPA’s new vehicle and power plant emissions standards, and the CFPB’s crackdown on predatory junk fees.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term. In SEC v. Jarkesy, the conservative majority made it much harder for the federal government to prosecute white collar criminals, while also threatening the structure of many administrative agencies. And in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Justices functionally eliminated the statute of limitations for challenging new federal regulations. In her dissent for the latter, Justice Jackson warned that “the tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court's holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.”
Of course for the right-wing, devastation is the goal. The Court’s dismantling of the administrative state follows Donald Trump’s own attempt to do so in the waning days of his presidency through the short-lived Schedule F scheme, which would have empowered the president to fire thousands of career civil servants at will and replace them with political loyalists. Though repealed by the Biden administration, restoring Schedule F remains a central plank of both Trump’s 2024 campaign and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power.
If nothing else, the end of Chevron should end debate among court-watchers as to whether any of the Roberts Court’s six conservative members (including Loper Bright author John Roberts himself) are “moderate.” Loper Bright is one more example in a series of landmark rulings— including Citizens United v. FEC, Janus v. AFSCME, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and the recent Trump v. United States—which reveal what John Roberts and his Court actually care about. They have no regard for long-held precedent or for the rule of law, only far-reaching power-grabs that benefit the Federalist Society and Big Business. Their flagrant disregard for judicial ethics and the separation of powers should compel Congress to rein in the Court’s unchecked power by codifying Chevron deference into law, enacting a binding and enforceable Supreme Court ethics code, impeaching Justices Thomas and Alito, and expanding the Supreme Court.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power. So long as the Supreme Court retains its corrupt right-wing majority, the future looks bright for Big Business. For the rest of us, the Court’s relentless power-grabs will make everyday life much worse.
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Why the Supreme Court's Immunity Trump Ruling Is Even Worse Than You Know
Five things you need to understand about what this right-wing majority has just done.
Jul 12, 2024
As nearly everyone living above ground now knows, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted Donald Trump and future Presidents broad immunity for official acts they commit while in office. The Court’s 6-3 majority opinion in United States v. Trump, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, confers “absolute immunity” on Presidents for exercising their “core Constitutional powers,” such as the authority to confer pardons, and “presumptive immunity” for all other acts within the “outer perimeter” of their official duties.
The ruling will effectively delay Trump’s trial on the indictment brought against him by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith until after the November election. In the longer term, the ruling clears the way for the establishment of an imperial presidency that, despite Roberts’ protestations to the contrary, operates above the law. If American democracy somehow survives, the opinion will go down as one of the most regressive in the Supreme Court’s history, taking its place alongside Dredd Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Bush v. Gore.
But as reckless as the ruling is on its face, it is even more dangerous when its depths are plumbed. Here are five truly awful things you may have overlooked about the case on an initial reading:
1. The opinion doesn’t change the definition of federal crimes, but it gives Presidents a license to commit crimes.
The opinion does not change the definition of any federal offense. Nor does the opinion hold, as Richard Nixon remarked in his infamous 1977 interview with British journalist David Frost, that “when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”
“Crimes are still crimes . . . [a]nd criminals are still criminals,” as Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes noted in a recent Lawfarearticle. If Trump is reelected and orders Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival, for example, he would still be breaking the law. He just could not be prosecuted. The immunity granted by the Supreme Court would provide Trump with legal protection from criminal liability and punishment, but it would not otherwise sanitize his conduct.
2. The pardon power opens the door to criminal conspiracies.
While the majority opinion immunizes Presidents for their official acts, it does not directly protect subordinates who carry out their orders. Nonetheless, Trump’s potential henchmen would not be left out in the cold. The opinion recognizes the pardon power as a core constitutional function that is beyond the scope of judicial review. As a result, future presidents will be able to pardon their accomplices, sparing them from any criminal punishments.
Long before John Roberts penned his majority opinion, Trump was aware of the broad reach of the pardon power. In 2019, he reportedly told Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan that he would pardon him if he were sent to jail for illegally blocking asylum seekers from entering the country. At the time, it was unclear if Trump was joking. Now, courtesy of Roberts and the Supreme Court’s ultra-right majority, the only joke is on the American people, who expect their chief executive to “take care” that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed, as the Constitution commands.
3. The opinion guts the Constitution’s impeachment judgment clause.
Roberts’ majority opinion rejected Trump’s outlandish claim that the indictment brought against him must be dismissed because the Constitution’s “Impeachment Judgment Clause” requires that Presidents be convicted of an impeachable offense in a Senate trial as a precondition to being prosecuted criminally in federal court.
What the opinion doesn’t say, however, is that by granting Presidents absolute immunity for exercising their core constitutional powers, Presidents will be forever shielded from criminal prosecution for official acts, whether for treason, bribery, or “other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a blistering dissent:
“The majority ignores . . . that the Impeachment Judgment Clause cuts against its own position. That Clause presumes the availability of criminal process as a backstop by establishing that an official impeached and convicted by the Senate ‘shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law’ . . . . That Clause clearly contemplates that a former President may be subject to criminal prosecution for the same conduct that resulted (or could have resulted) in an impeachment judgment—including conduct such as ‘Bribery.’”
4. As always, Clarence Thomas pushes the envelope.
Not content with joining Roberts’ majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas added a concurrence in which he called on his bench-mates to declare the Department of Justice’s special counsel regulations unconstitutional.
The regulations were put into effect by the DOJ in 1999 to fill a void left by Congress’s decision to allow a federal statute for appointing “independent counsels” to expire. The regulations have been upheld by two federal appellate courts—the D.C. Circuit in 2019 with regard to the appointment of Robert Mueller, and the Third Circuit with regard to the appointment of Robert Hur to investigate Hunter Biden. The Supreme Court, however, has yet to review the regulations.
Thomas’s concurrence is seen by some commentators as an open invitation to Federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Trump, to overturn the regulations and set up a test case to come before the Supreme Court. Cannon is currently entertaining a motion from Trump’s legal team to do just that. In the meantime, the case remains stalled with no date set for trial.
5. The opinion exposes originalism as a result-oriented sham.
The reactionary supermajority that controls the Supreme Court has embraced originalism—the view that the Constitution should be understood today as it was understood during the founding era—as an article of faith and practice. Proponents of originalism assert that the doctrine limits the subjectivity of judges and acts as a restraint on judicial activism.
Trump v. United States proves once and for all that originalism is a sham. Nowhere does the text of the Constitution provide for Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. Nor does a faithful reading of the seminal treatises of the founding era lead to such an outrageous conclusion.
In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote that Presidents in the newly minted republic would not have unlimited power but could, if need be, be prosecuted in the ordinary course of law. The overriding purpose of the revolution was to free a fledgling democracy from the clutches of absolute monarchy and to enshrine the principle that no one is above the law. To their everlasting shame, John Roberts and his collaborators would have us forget this purpose entirely.
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