Chief Justice Roberts's 2024 year-end report warned that "elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings." When I read that claim, I had no idea who the Chief was referring to. I know that critics have talked about jurisdiction stripping, court expansion, term limits, and so on, but open defiance? Who has proposed that?
Ruth Marcus has a theory. She writes that Roberts was taking a swipe at J.D. Vance. She points out several things Vance has said over the years. (I had missed a piece in Politico Magazine that cited several of these sources.) I follow law and politics pretty closely, and I had never heard of any of these statements. Let's walk through them, one a time.
First, Marcus writes that in September 2021, candidate Vance appeared on the Jack Murphy Live podcast. You can listen to the entire podcast here, or read the transcript here. And here is a section (27:13) that Marcus quotes, in part. (She omits the "constitutional crisis level" bit.)
