The Chief Justice Needs To Stop Taking PR Cues From Meghan Markle

The Chief Justice Needs To Stop Taking PR Cues From Meghan Markle

Elle Purcell for The Federalist

The Meghan Markle strategy of issuing press releases to make people take you seriously is no way to run a Supreme Court.

Meghan Markle single-handedly damaged the centuries-old reputation of the British crown by trying to win affirmation from the public via a constant PR campaign. Chief Justice John Roberts is well on his way to doing the same thing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both institutions lack any kind of real mechanism to enforce their power. The survival of both is predicated on their subjects’ recognition of — and willingness to submit to — their authority.

If the people of Britain decide they’re tired of subsidizing the royal family’s lifestyle, there’s not much the palace can do about it. If the Supreme Court becomes viewed as so political that the president and American people revert to the Andrew Jackson approach of “the chief justice has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” the court is pretty much out of cards to play. So the people who command each institution recognize how vital it is to keep the public convinced of their legitimacy.

The late Queen Elizabeth II was often credited with following a “never complain, never explain” strategy. Markle took the opposite approach during her brief stint as a member of The Firm and even more so afterward. From the unveiling of a company, to its rebranding, to a Spotify podcast that wasn’t, to a Netflix show, to another podcast attempt, she has kept her struggle for relevance on life support by issuing constant announcements about what’s going on in Meghan-world. The more desperate her cries of “TAKE ME SERIOUSLY” become, the more people roll their eyes and wish she’d go on a social media cleanse.

The chief justice shares her obsession with maintaining public adoration, and unfortunately, he also appears to share her strategy for it.

Roberts knows the court has been subject to incessant attacks on its legitimacy from the left, ranging from threats to “burn this place down” after the court’s leaked decision overturning Roe v. Wade to impeachment campaigns targeted at the court’s most originalist justices. He is no doubt alarmed at the fact that conservatives are now quickly losing respect for a judicial branch that enables rogue lower court judges to unilaterally enjoin the elected president from executing his constitutional responsibilities, including foreign policy responsibilities over which domestic courts hold no authority.

The best way to defend the court’s legitimacy — and the public’s perception of it — would be to quickly shut down these rogue judges and uphold the constitutional separation of powers. Roberts had the opportunity to do so earlier this month, after a D.C. district court judge issued an outlandish temporary restraining order commanding the executive branch to cough up $2 billion to USAID contractors despite the Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid. Instead, Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s liberals in refusing to even take the case.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Samuel Alito balked at the idea of handing “a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction … the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars.”

Since that March 5 decision, emboldened federal judges have taken cues from the court’s unwillingness to check their power. They have ordered the president to stop deporting suspected terrorists who are present in the United States illegally; to relax military standards to accommodate people with gender dysphoria; and to re-hire fired federal workers.

Their actions appear designed to spark a constitutional crisis. If the president can be hamstrung from executing his responsibilities as head of foreign policy, commander-in-chief, and chief of the executive branch by the whims of any one of the roughly 700 district court judges around the country, he’s little more than a figurehead.

As the head of the highest court in the country, it’s John Roberts’ job to correct the unconstitutional decisions of lesser members of the judicial branch. If he wants to preserve the court’s image in the eyes of the public, the easiest way to do so is just by doing his job. The best way to preserve legitimacy is by being legitimate, not going around trying to convince people how legitimate you are.

It’s unfortunate that Roberts is more committed to the latter. Trump’s calls for rogue judges to be impeached, not the actions of the rogue judges themselves, were a bridge too far for Roberts, who issued a rare public statement chiding the president.

“Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Someone might need to remind him that the executive branch already tried the normal appellate review process in the USAID case, and Roberts himself turned them away!

It’s not the first time Roberts has broken his silence to aim snide remarks at Trump. In 2018, after Trump referred to a judge who had been appointed by President Barack Obama as an “Obama judge,” Roberts broke tradition to weigh in on the non-troversy.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in an “unprecedented” statement criticizing the president. “The independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Roberts’ public statements are all the more remarkable considering his silencein the face of an assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh after the Dobbs decision and left-wing pressure campaigns calling for the impeachment of Justices Clarence Thomas and Alito.

He should know that it does the court’s legitimacy more harm than good to pick political fights via press release. Statements offered to left-wing news outlets in defense of rebellious lower court judges tarnish the reputation Roberts holds so dearly, as does his refusal to do his job by keeping those judges in check.

If Roberts wants people to respect him, he should shut up and do his job. The Meghan Markle strategy of issuing press releases to make people take you seriously is no way to run a Supreme Court.