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This was John Roberts' plan all along
This was John Roberts’ plan all along
The chief justice has declared that the Court is not political. The facts — and his own history — say otherwise
By David Daley
Contributing Writer
Published May 9, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)
(Salon) Maybe John Roberts is getting uneasy that the American people are onto him.
“I think they view us as truly political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do,” he told a conference of lawyers and judges in Pennsylvania. “We’re not simply part of the political process.”
....(snip)....
This immediate erasure of Black political representation — soon to become the largest since the death of Reconstruction — was the predictable result of the Court’s party-line decision last week in Callais v. Louisiana, the latest in a series of cases that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act. The decision will also create a massive reallocation of political power in the U.S. House, all of it headed away from Democrats and toward Republicans.
Roberts is a savvy political operator. He arrived at the Court from chief justice central casting, the Brooks Brothers-dad-next-door, and ever since his 2005 confirmation hearings, he has framed himself as a sensible midwestern institutionalist, an umpire calling balls and strikes. Roberts understood that it would be easier to enact his reactionary agenda if he could maintain the illusion that the Court functioned above the grubby influence of partisan politics.
....(snip)....
Just look at Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 case that marked the Roberts Court’s first shot at the VRA, which froze its most useful enforcement mechanism. Wealthy donors on the right, centered around a little known but staggeringly powerful organization called DonorsTrust — often called the right’s ATM — helped fund, along with other major conservative foundations, the organization that developed the Shelby County case and identified the plaintiffs. Then they covered the seven-figure legal fees for the Supreme Court case. They also funded the Federalist Society, which helped vet the judges who decided it, and supported the conservative law professors who generated theories, legal concepts and amicus briefs. .....................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/05/09/this-was-john-roberts-plan-all-along/
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