Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution

 

Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/30/800063103/courts/supreme-courts-leader-doesnt-care-about-the-constitution/ 

Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution

by Lisa Needham
Staff
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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts attends President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts attends President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 7, 2023.AP

Let’s get this out of the way: There is no world where you can square the Supreme Court’s inherently contradictory Monday decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook.

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On the one hand, President Donald Trump now has the power to fire the principal officers—think commissioners and chairs—of independent agencies, without even the remotest cause, further gutting the administrative state and turning it into nothing but a place for dangerous partisan hacks.

On the other hand, Trump now does not have the power to fire the principal officers of just one lone independent agency, the Federal Reserve, where he can only fire them for cause, because it needs to be protected from dangerous partisan hacks. 

A cartoon by David Horsey of Donald Trump tipping the scale of justice.
CDavid Horsey/Tribune Content Agency

Why is the Federal Reserve special here? You won’t find a genuine answer in the opinions, both of which are written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

It’s honestly nothing more complicated than that Roberts is perfectly thrilled to give the most worm-brained toddler of a president free rein to remake the administrative state in his image, but not to give the most worm-brained toddler free rein to destabilize monetary policy. Gotta know what’s really important here. 

In Trump v. Slaughter, the conservative supermajority allowed Trump to fire Rebecca Slaughter, without cause, from the Federal Trade Commission. The ruling overturned a 91-year-old precedent, Humphrey’s Executor, which had held that the president could not remove members of the FTC without cause. But the Slaughter ruling isn’t limited to the FTC, but now covers all independent agency members, commissioners, heads, and chairs. Well, except for the Federal Reserve, of course. 

How does Roberts square this? He doesn’t, really. And why should he? This isn’t about what the law actually is. It’s what Trump and Roberts want the law to be. 

Though you do not, in fact, have to hand it to the conservative majority, at least in this instance, they explicitly owned that they were overruling Humphrey’s, which is more than they’ve done previously on the shadow docket.

What comes through the most in Slaughter is the majority’s disdain for Congress, a sneering disregard that mocks the mere idea that it is meant to check the executive branch. Here’s Roberts in his risible majority opinion: “The answer, then as now, is that these officers exercise the President’s power, not their own, and thus must be responsible to him.”

Yes, that’s basically him saying that, sure, the Constitution gives the power to Congress to make independent agencies, but heavens to betsy, what kind of nimrods thought that meant that Congress had the power to set the conditions about that agency? Per Justice Neil Gorsuch’s equally legally threadbare concurrence, the Supreme Court today is, in its infinite wisdom, simply restoring balance: “The Court today takes a notable step back toward the Constitution.”

Who knew that all along, all three branches of government were just wrong about this, but Trump unlocked One Weird Trick that means that really, the executive has all the power?

Indeed, that’s exactly what Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in her dissent: “Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time.”

The president is now an untouchable king, one who gets to run the entire executive branch singlehandedly, based on personal whims and malice. Totally what the founders intended, right? 

This won’t stop with high-level agency appointees. It was never meant to.

The administration already declared months ago that Trump doesn’t need to provide any due process protections to immigration judges, who, as run-of-the-mill DOJ employees, not appointees, are in no way similar to the sort of “principal officers” the president is now supposed to enjoy complete control over, per Roberts. 

That little tidbit was revealed a few months ago when The New York Times reported that the administration explicitly pressured the independent Merit Systems Protection Board to give Trump his way, putting the lie to even nominal independence there. 

And Trump has already, via executive order, stripped civil service protections from thousands more federal employees by arbitrarily reclassifying them as policy positions simply because they are senior positions.

What Trump now gets is nothing less than a return to the spoils system, where the whole of federal jobs are filled with allies, cronies, and failsons and faildaughters who need jobs, regardless of any actual qualifications.

FILE - Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook leaves the Supreme Court in Washington, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook leaves the Supreme Court in Washington, Jan. 21, 2026. AP

Except, apparently, for the Federal Reserve, as the very same John Roberts held in Trump v. Cook, where things came out the opposite way, for … reasons. Because the justices’ pocketbooks are sacred, while everyone else can be removed on vibes, when it comes to the Fed, Trump can only remove someone for cause. 

Roberts doesn’t need to make it make sense, because he doesn’t care. In the end, it’s just a a raw exercise of power by both Trump and the conservatives on the nation’s highest court, a reminder that, despite invoking it all the time, they don’t care about the Constitution at all. 

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  1. Comment by bmx writer.

    Asking for a friend. Does this decision give a president the power to fire the Chief Justice?

  2. Comment by Rusticana.

    The Constitution is like State's Rights: it only has power when it's convenient. That's the Republican creed.

  3. Comment by ProfessorAlbee.

    For the record, I have always admired Canada's constitutional schematic from 1982, especially 'The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'.

  4. Comment by Soaked Ferret.

    While I agree that expanding the SC is essential in the short term and agree that fundamental reforms are also urgently needed, I do not believe that any of this will matter unless the people who have taken a wrecking ball (I don’t say chain saw because chain saws are far more precise instruments than what these people have used) to our government and related institutions AND the people who supported their rise to and maintenance of power are stripped of their power, their ill-gotten gains, their freedom to walk freely in our society, and any capability of affecting the politics of this country ever again. Otherwise, they will just keep trying and might find a more effective tool than the leader of the current administration. They have been using, and will continue to use, the freedoms our government is supposed to protect to warp and destroy our government. They can do this because they know that too many people, especially in the muddled middle, will accept ANY perversion of the spirit of the law if even the barest fig leaf of following the letter of the law is offered.

    People here complain that our opponents are being hypocritical when they want freedom of speech for themselves but not for others. That’s not hypocritical. It WOULD be if they were claiming that freedom of speech was a universal value. They make no pretenses to claiming that rights are for ALL. As I say over and over here, THAT is what all the attacks on us trans people are about. Get people to agree that there is a single group of citizens for whom rights do not apply, then you have the precedent that there are NO rights, only privileges. Until we crush this concept completely, and I think that means removing the possibility of people holding this view and trying to enact it from having any part in the political process, we will continue to be under the threat of dissolution of our democracy by well-funded demagogues.

    Soaked Ferret

    • Reply by necturus.

      Don't expand the Court; abolish it. An expanded Court would still have the power to undo acts of Congress -- a power nowhere given to it in the constitution, but a power the Court arrogated to itself. It has made itself our version of Iran's Guardian Council, and has even meddled in a Presidential election (2000), with disastrous consequences. It needs to go.

  5. Comment by RepublicanKos.

    Old white christian privilege fatigue.

  6. Comment by necturus.

    [The president is now an untouchable king, one who gets to run the entire executive branch singlehandedly, based on personal whims and malice. Totally what the founders intended, right?]

    Yes, that was more or less what the founders intended. But remember, there wasn't much to the executive branch back then. There was no FBI, no IRS, no FCC, no Department of Homeland Security. The federal government didn't even have much of an army.

    This is what you get when you have an eighteenth century constitution and an unelected, unaccountable panel of judges with unchecked authority over it.

  7. Comment by NoFreeRide.

    Also just in time for the DOJ to claim that they really don't have to release the rest of the Epstein files, regardless of the recent ruling, because they work for the Prez and not on some court's dime.

  8. Comment by slipperyone.

    What worries me is the prospect of Thomas and/or Alito resigning in the next month or two and Trump appointing two 40-something lackeys in their place. Remembering how quickly Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed after Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death, this could easily be done. And even if they hold on for a while, unless Democrats regain the Senate, it will be hard to prevent this over the next two years.

  9. Comment by Milwrob.

    "Führerprinzip: The "Leader principle" dictated that Adolf Hitler’s will superseded all written law, and he could arbitrarily intervene in any judicial proceeding or overturn sentences." AI synopsis.

    Appears history is to a degree trying to repeat itself!

  10. Comment by ewhac.

    They're laying the groundwork such that, even if Democrats sweep the midterms and gain majorities in both houses, they won't "legally" be able to do anything.

    The first people who should be impeached should be Clarence Thomas (for soliciting and accepting bribes) and Bret Kavanaugh (for lying under oath during his confirmation hearings). That they can argue that they haven't violated black-letter law is irrelevant -- "good behavior" gives Congress a lot of subjective leeway. Once done: Allow no SCOTUS nominees through -- don't even hold hearings -- until the slob is out, by whatever process that takes.

    ...Oh. And all those centrist dipshits who sanctimoniously lectured the left that extremist opinions from the Court were un-possible because Roberts was deeply concerned about his "legacy?" Yeah. All 'yall can go soak your head in a bucket of piranha fish.

    • Reply by jhecht.

      They all lied under oath during their confirmation hearings. None of them have respected precedent though they all claimed to. Before impeaching Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, Congress needs to make SCOTUS subject to the Federal Employees Code of Ethics, and then take action since they are all clearly in violation of it.

  11. Comment by TRPChicago.

    An exceptionally well stated analysis, Lisa!

  12. Comment by JimB9999.

    Perhaps it is a Pollyanna view that being elevated to the Supreme Court relieves the justice from all personal biases and gives a life devoted to the law. And there are people like Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and others who become addicted to the power that the position engenders, using the power to advance political agendas, ignoring the law.

  13. Comment by RubberDux.

    It is clear that even as soon as the next Congress (assuming the Democrats don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory) there needs to be a fundamental re-think around how the federal government operates, from the ground up. How that happens and what it looks like, I couldn't even say. But the Democratic Party needs to get out in front of it before the right does. Because a reckoning is coming. It's just a matter of when and what shape it takes.

    • Reply by Back of Bourke.

      Yup. Like a failing highway that can't be fixed with a band aid of repaving, a minimum of a full-depth reclamation is in order; better yet, a full reconstruction, right down to the subgrade.

  14. Comment by Riff.

    Democrats manage to get the Presidency and control of Congress, I'd like to see them say, "Mr. Roberts, with all the same respect you have show for precedent and the constitutional order, we hereby disavow Marbury vs Madison and all that came after that. You are dismissed. We will be rebuilding a genuine SCOTUS and a reformed independent federal judicial system from scratch. Oh, and all of you justices need to surrender your passports and stay home until further notice."

    • Reply by RubberDux.

      Marbury v Madison is SCOTUS accruing power to itself. Congress would do well to remind the court of that, perhaps.

    • Reply by jhecht.

      I would like to see them establish a Trump Crimes Court whose decisions cannot be reviewed by SCOTUS since certain members should expect to be plaintiffs and therefore the entire court needs to be recused.

  15. Comment by AnotherOklahoman.

    “ There is no world where you can square the Supreme Court’s inherently contradictory Monday decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook. ”

    Well said!

  16. Comment by jjohnjj.

    The Federal Reserve exists to protect the value of The Almighty Dollar, so of course the Court support the Board's independence.

    Federal agencies, however - even if created by Congress - must now "serve at the pleasure of the President".

    Both decisions serve the interests of Wall Street.

  17. Comment by cosliberal.

    Every ruling by the Roberts Court is intended to positively impact the short term electoral prospects of the GOP and /or the long term economic prospects of the .00001%. Think of every ruling since he took over as chief thru that lens and it all become clear. If at the same time it strokes his personal racism or love of corporations, that's icing on the cake.

  18. Comment by jgt1900.

    3 of the Extremes voted to do away with birthright citizenship even though it's clearly written in the 14th Amendment. Kavanaugh is willing to do it if you follow his prescribed pathway. This gets worse all the time. Court reform has to be high on the list of priorities since they can negate any other meaningful reform.

    • Reply by sparky81884.

      Though I'm glad the MAGAists failed to overturn birthright citizenship, that was the only case that might have driven popular uprising against this out-of-control Court. It was easy to understand the plain language of the Constitution that was involved, it affected significant number of people directly, and a huge number of people can trace ancestry to people whose citizenship derived from it. The rest of these cases, while catastrophic, are technical and weedy. It's much harder to understand why Congress demanded that the FTC and FCC be independent agencies than "all persons born in the United States...".

    • Reply by Harvey Manfrenjensenden.

      One cannot help but wonder if this Court would rule that the Constitution itself is unconstitutional if Trump asked them to so rule.

    • Reply by ktoz.

      They’ve already concluded that the founder’s intent is miraculously aligned with current conservative fanaticism. They’re just correcting the 250 years of “misinterpreted” law.

  19. Comment by LeMoJoust.

    A corporation, a legal entity that only exists only on paper is a person according to the fraud John Roberts, has all the rights but none of the responsibilities of flesh & blood person.

    A Trans person, even though a living person & citizen of this country has no protections under the SCOTUS MAGA-6

    • Reply by jhecht.

      Rights but no responsibility. Great. So now he's saying corporations are the same as children. So now let him explain why they should have more say than children in how our country is run.

  20. Comment by dge.

    As bad as this decision is, at least it also will allow a Democratic President to fire every MAGA hack appointee on Day 1. Then it will be time to expand and reform the Supreme Court to get it back to some semblance of rationality.

    • Reply by sparky81884.

      And so we need to work for a Democratic President with the courage to do so. Too many will dream of returning to a more civil era and delude themselves that merely returning to bygone norms will accomplish that goal.

    • Reply by b4xtc.

      I doubt that it will benefit Democrats when in office though.

      This Robert's Court has no compunction when it comes to overruling themselves to prevent any left leaning movement becoming or staying a law or a right, particularly from Democrats.

      All the same what good does it do us on the left to install hacks and cronies like the Republicans will be allowed to do when office. Even if great are is taken to hire good people by an incoming administration, those new hires will be out on their ass as soon as the other party takes control.

      Who would even want a job in government that insecure, but cronies and hacks

    • Reply by jjohnjj.

      Perhaps Progressives should find the courage to put progress aside long enough to recapture the territory we have lost, and defend the territory we still hold. The problem is not "uncivil" Republicans in Congress... it's the voters who put them there.

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