Now Roberts appears to have responded. His report is striking in its measured and deliberative tone in comparison to the often reckless rhetoric of these politicians. He waited to address the year in review for his court and the 107 district and appeals courts across the country. However, he included the following lines that are clearly directed toward Congress and extreme Democratic groups like Demand Justice:
“Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government.”
The criticism comes after new polling shows that Roberts is the most popular government official in the country, a fact that led some on the left to express almost apocalyptic alarm.
He is not the only justice who is speaking out to blunt the attacks on the Court. Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer chaffed at the claim that this is a “conservative” court and noted “The chief justice frequently speaks on this subject as well and says, no, no: we don’t look at our rulings from the point of view of our personal ideology.”
Justice Thomas criticized those who seem intent on diminishing the authority or respect for the Court: “the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference…They think you become like a politician. That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently told an audience that “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”