Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. closed the Supreme Court’s term on Friday with a warning to justices to cut out the carping, saying the increasingly harsh language they use in their opinions to attack others’ rulings is hurting the court.
He issued the admonition in the court’s final decision of the year: a 6-3 ruling halting President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by the other two Democratic-appointed justices, wrote a fierce dissent saying the high court broke from judiciary principles.
Chief Justice Roberts said the dissent went too far.
“It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” he wrote.
He said the court used “traditional tools of judicial decisionmaking” before issuing its ruling.
“Reasonable minds may disagree with our analysis — in fact, at least three do,” he wrote, pointing to the dissenters. “We do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement. It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.”
The court had a tumultuous term as it battled allegations of ethical lapses and polls showed plummeting confidence in its impartiality.
The justices have made monumental decisions in the past couple of years, including a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which established a national right to abortion; struck down some state gun control laws; and ruled against affirmative action policies of many of the country’s most prominent universities.
Friday brought two more major rulings.
In one, the court said LGBTQ individuals cannot force creative businesses to express statements contrary to their beliefs.
In the other, the court ruled against Mr. Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, a major wish list item for the political left.
Dissenting to that ruling, Justice Kagan said the Republican-appointed justices were turning the court into a superlegislature by taking up a case they should have rejected and using it to settle policy disputes between the White House and Congress.
“So in a case not a case, the majority overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans,” she wrote.
Although it was that dissent that Chief Justice Roberts connected to his scolding, it could just as easily have been any of the dissents Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote this year.
She repeatedly suggested that the court was ruling the way it was because of its composition — seemingly hinting at the addition of three Trump-appointed justices who solidified the court’s conservative bent after decades of liberal leanings and then some years of centrist dominance.
Chief Justice Roberts’ warning was aimed at those inside and outside the court.
Given the next opinions won’t come for months, it remains to be seen whether the scolding will work with the justices, but it’s unlikely to have any effect outside the court.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said Sunday that the Supreme Court is losing legitimacy because of reports of ethics questions and conflicts of interest. She said Congress should investigate with an eye toward impeachment.
“We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who once warned the justices that they “will pay the price” for their rulings, also unleashed a broadside.
“This MAGA-captured Supreme Court feels free to accept lavish gifts and vacations from their powerful, big-monied friends, all while they refuse to help everyday Americans,” he said. “The ill-founded and disappointing decisions from the Supreme Court are a stark reminder that it will take a sustained effort to rebalance our federal courts and restore the values that have made the United States a beacon for freedom, democracy, equality, and opportunity.”
Whether the court’s standing dropped because of its rulings or outsiders’ vicious attacks is anyone’s guess, but drop it did.
A Quinnipiac University poll last month found that just 30% of registered voters approved of the court and 59% disapproved. That was the lowest rating since Quinnipiac began asking the question in 2004.
Some 53% of Republicans approved of the court, compared with just 10% of Democrats.
Mr. Biden took office with a promise to look at packing the court. The last president to seriously consider the idea was Franklin D. Roosevelt, overseeing the New Deal.
Mr. Biden formed a commission to ponder whether to name more justices to swamp the court’s 6-3 edge of Republican nominees or to impose term limits.
The commission delivered a report, but it made no ripples and Mr. Biden didn’t pursue any of the ideas. He said last week that such proposals would only add to the politicization.
He did lob some rhetorical grenades.
“This is not a normal court,” he told reporters in one reaction.
In an interview with MSNBC, he expanded on that remark: “What I meant was that it’s done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history.”
The 5-4 ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year overturned nearly 50 years of abortion precedent. The court said decisions were wrongly made on Roe and another case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe two decades later.
Adam Feldman, a Supreme Court scholar who runs Empirical SCOTUS, a data-driven approach to studying the court, said the high court overturns precedent multiple times each term.
He said the current court draws so much attention because its rulings are “rolling back previously given rights,” often divided along sharp ideological lines.
Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said the decisions overturning precedent were about “restoring the proper role of the judiciary.”
“At the end of the day, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the Supreme Court. And when precedent flies in the face of the Constitution, it is the duty of the Court to overrule it,” he said.
He said liberal anger over precedent is overwrought.
“Democrats who now scream that it is outrageous for the court to overrule precedent should remember that some of the Supreme Court decisions most cherished by liberals were the result of overruling precedent — for example, decisions striking down racial segregation [Brown], economic liberty [West Coast Hotel], and the criminalization of homosexual conduct [Lawrence],” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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