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How John Roberts Lost The Right Wing Of The Supreme Court

It's the exact opposite of winning friends and influencing people.

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John Roberts Confirmation Hearings Continue For A Third Day

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

More details from CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic’s new book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences, are leaking out ahead of its publication on Tuesday. The latest tidbit to catch our attention (we already know John Roberts was pretty cold following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that circumstantial evidence is strong that the Dobbs leak came from the right of the Court, thanks to the upcoming book) is that the Chief Justice is on the outs with his more conservative colleagues.

As reported by Bloomberg News, some of the bad blood on the conservative side of the bench can be traced back to Roberts’s vote against Donald Trump’s ordered attempt to end the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and planned deportation of the Dreamers impacted by the Act.

Biskupic writes in “Nine Black Robes” that conservative justices “privately complained to me” about Roberts after he cast the key vote in 2020 to block then-President Donald Trump from ending the DACA deferred-deportation program.

And what’s a story about political fractures in the 2020s without an appearance by COVID?

She also says colleagues thought Roberts “was acting peremptorily” when he imposed a plan to hold 10 arguments by telephone when the pandemic began that year.

University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman says the account “adds to the sometimes public griping, but other times barely concealed disdain, that the Republican justices have toward the chief.”

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And this all creates the backdrop of the slash-and-burn Dobbs decision. Remember, the speculation is that Roberts tried to pull his more right-wing colleagues to the center to give Roe a death by a thousand cuts rather that the five finger death punch Samuel Alito ultimately penned. So even before the leak calcified the tone, the justices Roberts most needed to persuade were already giving him side eye.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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