Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has completely changed the United States government. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. presidents have immunity for any official act they take — even if this act is illegal. Regardless of how conservatives or liberals view this decision, it’s clear that Roberts has forever affected the idea of the separation of powers.
The conservative-led court, headed by Roberts, faced a huge amount of criticism when they claimed that presidents were immune to just about anything — as long as the laws they were breaking were “official acts.”
There have been many think pieces about why the Supreme Court chose to side with the executive branch, giving President Donald Trump the right to do whatever he wanted. Many have assumed this ruling had to do with the court wanting to side with Trump.
For Roberts, however, it was more about siding with the executive branch, empowering it even more so that he could destroy the legislative branch. In his quest to weaken Congress, Roberts has turned to Alexander Hamilton.
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John Roberts Continues to Misread Alexander Hamilton
Roberts has relied on using Federalist No. 70, written by founding father Alexander Hamilton in defense of the Constitution more than 200 years ago, time and time again. In the Trump v. United States case, which gave the president criminal immunity for official acts, one can see how No. 70 affected Roberts’ decision.
However, Roberts is misinterpreting what Hamilton wrote. Hamilton pushed for having an “energetic executive” that consisted of one president, rather than a council of leaders. Roberts claims that, instead of speaking of multiple presidents in the executive branch, he was speaking of the legislative branch.
Roberts even went so far as to state that the Constitution’s framers “viewed the legislative power as a special threat to individual liberty.” According to Roberts, this is why there is only one president who rules the executive branch.
This is a massive misreading of No. 70 and what Hamilton was actually arguing. Hamilton argued for one president and not a council — he didn’t state that the president needed to rein in a threatening legislative power.
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Making the Executive Branch Unstoppable
Roberts clearly has it out for Congress. All American schoolkids are taught about the separation of powers in the United States government. No one branch is more powerful than the other. All exist to check the others’ power and bring the country to a balance.
Roberts’ agenda to weaken the legislative branch, thereby giving the executive more power than ever seen before in American history, does away with this idea of a balance in government. As a result, Roberts and the Supreme Court have weakened American democracy. Hamilton himself pushed for the impeachment of presidents, if needed, in No. 69. Yet Roberts seems to ignore this writing, as it doesn’t fit his agenda to weaken Congress — and make the president unstoppable.
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