by Mike Davis at the Federalist
Judges have life tenure to insulate them from political pressure, not so they can act like politicians in robes.
In a recent New York Times article, dozens of inferior court judges violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges by taking pot shots at the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.
Some judges called Supreme Court reversals “demoralizing,” while others whined that the Supreme Court’s reversals at the very least created the perception of partisanship on the justices’ part, as the Supreme Court mostly has been reversing rulings that had gone against Trump administration policies. One judge compared the relationship between the justices and that judge’s district to “a war zone.”
Article III of the Constitution establishes a judicial hierarchy. At the top is the Supreme Court. It is the final arbiter and head of the judicial branch, just as the sitting president is the head of the executive branch. The Framers, understanding that the Supreme Court could not alone manage all cases, provided for the creation of inferior courts by Congress. Through statutes, Congress has created these, providing for nearly a thousand judgeships on district courts and courts of appeals spread across our country. These inferior courts must follow Supreme Court precedent and the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Among other things, the code prohibits judges from making political comments or even comments that a reasonable observer could view as such.
The griping of inferior court judges stems from about two dozen rulings on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. This docket allows justices to pause orders from lower courts while the litigation proceeds. Radicals trying to grind to a halt President Donald Trump’s electoral mandate repeatedly have run to district courts in leftist hellholes like the District of Columbia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Boston. The judges there are overwhelmingly radical leftists. Even the Republican appointees are, for the most part, milquetoast because home-state Democrat senators can veto quality conservative nominees thanks to a Senate tradition known as the blue slip. The Supreme Court has correctly reversed absurd inferior court orders issued by judges who refuse to accept that President Trump is implementing an agenda for which the American people voted.