Polarized Court Damages Own Legacy

Despite the chief justice’s declared intentions, the Roberts Court ravages the idea of “rule based on principle,” acting instead like a polarized political body, the New Republic’s Benjamin Wittes argues. Speeches about division's acidic effects aside, John Roberts smirks at precedent even as lefty colleagues on his court, which began its third term today, get hysterical in a heartbeat.

Wittes considers conservatives and liberals alike responsible for “childish and cartoonish ideological divisions.” Last term, the Court was unanimous in only 13 of 73 decisions and split 5-4 in an unprecedented 23 cases. And those who want to believe in “something more elevated” than a politicized judicial system have to wince as justices misappropriate Warren Court masterpieces. (More John Roberts stories.)