The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has grown far too powerful, and could permanently alter the government established by the framers if current trends continue, according to a conservative legal expert.
On Saturday, Norman Ornstein — who is an emeritus scholar at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute — offered a frank and stunning condemnation of the Court in a post to X (formerly Twitter). After a wave of controversial rulings in the final week of its 2023-2024 term, Ornstein opined that the Supreme Court is rapidly transforming into courts seen in authoritarian governments seen in other parts of the world.
"I wonder how long it will take before Americans wake up to the brutal reality that the US Supreme Court has staged a coup, brazenly seizing power from the other two branches in a way that is utterly contrary to the framers vision of the role of a court and a judiciary," he wrote. "And it is crystal clear that if [former President] Donald Trump wins, the Supreme Court will be much closer to the Russian or Hungarian courts than the one in our constitution."
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Ornstein's tweet comes on the heels of a busy week for SCOTUS, with justices siding with a January 6 insurrectionist in his challenge of a criminal charge against him — potentially impacting charges filed against hundreds of other participants in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Court also notably overturned 40 years of precedent after officially disposing of a long-respected legal process known as the Chevron Doctrine.
Under that doctrine — which was first established in the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case — courts deferred to experts within federal agencies to interpret how federal laws impact the industries those agencies are tasked with regulating. In summing up January’s oral arguments, SCOTUSBlog noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that if the Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine, it would mean policy decisions wouldn’t rest with experts working for federal agencies, but with the Court itself. After Friday's ruling overturning that precedent, the federal judiciary now has additional powers to set policy within all federal agencies.
Judges taking the place of experts in deciding how to interpret regulations could prove problematic, as Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch recently demonstrated in his opinion in a separate decision. Forbes reported that in the Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency case, Gorsuch mistakenly referred to the pollutant nitrogen oxide as "nitrous oxide," which is the laughing gas used by oral hygienists.
Perhaps the most highly anticipated decision of this term is Trump v. United States, in which the former president is arguing that he has absolute broad criminal immunity for all official acts carried out as president. His D.C. election interference trial has been on hold while SCOTUS considered his argument, which was already rejected by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and by a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel. Despite flags seen flying outside two of conservative Justice Samuel Alito's homes that were carried by insurrectionists, the justice refused calls to recuse, and Chief Justice John Roberts declined to meet with two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the incidents.
READ MORE: Flag outside Alito's vacation home 'literally carried by insurrectionists': J6 investigator
Ornstein isn't alone in his view of the Roberts Court becoming an increasingly partisan institution. Earlier this week, Newsweek reported that multiple federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents are casting doubt on the Court's ability to rule on cases in an objective manner.
David S. Tatel, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the D.C. Circuit, wrote in his memoir that his "low regard" for SCOTUS prompted him to retire from the bench.
"My views, I think, are widely shared throughout the judicial system," Tatel said. "Obviously, there are people who don't agree with them, but there are, I can assure you, a large number of judges who will not find anything I've said in this book surprising."
READ MORE: 'Political and traitorous decision': Experts outraged by SCOTUS taking Trump immunity case
