In a recent New York Times op-ed, Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz accuses the Supreme Court’s justices of seizing for themselves “more and more of the national governing agenda, overriding other decision makers with startling frequency.” And Chafetz argues that the justices “have done so in language that drips with contempt for other governing institutions and in a way that elevates the judicial role above all others.”
Whether the Supreme Court has overstepped its rightful bounds in a particular case is a frequently recurring debate, and a legitimate one. But focusing on the justices’ rhetoric is relatively novel. Is it true, as Chafetz claims, that the justices “have repeatedly described other political institutions in overwhelmingly derogatory terms while either describing the judiciary in flattering terms or not describing it at all”? Is their purpose really to deny the judiciary’s “status as an institution” and instead position it “as simply a conduit of disembodied law”?
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