Opinion: John Roberts May Be the Worst Chief Justice in Supreme Court History

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

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With all of the concurrent scandals roiling the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s easy to forget that there was another path Chief Justice John Roberts could have taken: stricter ethics rules and more accountability for judges whose life tenure makes them some of the most powerful people in the country.

That’s the message Lisa Graves, the host of a new Supreme Court-focused podcast called Grave Injustice, wanted to convey on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal.

“I think John Roberts is gonna go down in history as one of the worst chief justices of the United States,” Graves said. “He’s done everything he can to try to manipulate the process to avoid and block efforts by the Senate to hold the court accountable, to insist that it abide by just commonsense ethical rules that every other court in the country has to follow.”

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“Congress should take action [against the Supreme Court] to ensure consequences,” she added.

“They can change [the court’s] budget, they can impose term limits on these judges, they can begin in the House with impeachment proceedings—though of course, they can’t proceed with the House being dominated by Republicans, but they can file those measures and try to get that ball rolling. There are a lot of things that these members can do.”

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Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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