Supreme Court Bar member resigns in letter condemning Chief Justice Roberts.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... etter.html

James Dannenberg is a retired Hawaii state judge. He sat on the District Court of the 1st Circuit of the state judiciary for 27 years. Before that, he served as the deputy attorney general of Hawaii. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, teaching federal jurisdiction for more than a decade. He has appeared on briefs and petitions as part of the most prestigious association of attorneys in the country: the Supreme Court Bar. The lawyers admitted to practice before the high court enjoy preferred seating at arguments and access to the court library, and are deemed members of the legal elite. Above all, the bar stands as a sprawling national signifier that the work of the court, the legitimacy of the institution, and the business of justice is bolstered by tens of thousands of lawyers across the nation.


On Wednesday, Dannenberg tendered a letter of resignation from the Supreme Court Bar to Chief Justice John Roberts. He has been a member of that bar since 1972. In his letter, reprinted in full below, Dannenberg compares the current Supreme Court, with its boundless solicitude for the rights of the wealthy, the privileged, and the comfortable, to the court that ushered in the Lochner era in the early 20th century, a period of profound judicial activism that put a heavy thumb on the scale for big business, banking, and insurance interests, and ruled consistently against child labor, fair wages, and labor regulations.

The Chief Justice of the United States

One First Street, N.E.

Washington, D.C. 20543

March 11, 2020

Dear Chief Justice Roberts:

I hereby resign my membership in the Supreme Court Bar.

This was not an easy decision. I have been a member of the Supreme Court Bar since 1972, far longer than you have, and appeared before the Court, both in person and on briefs, on several occasions as Deputy and First Deputy Attorney General of Hawaii before being appointed as a Hawaii District Court judge in 1986. I have a high regard for the work of the Federal Judiciary and taught the Federal Courts course at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law for a decade in the 1980s and 1990s. This due regard spanned the tenures of Chief Justices Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist before your appointment and confirmation in 2005. I have not always agreed with the Court’s decisions, but until recently I have generally seen them as products of mainstream legal reasoning, whether liberal or conservative. The legal conservatism I have respected– that of, for example, Justice Lewis Powell, Alexander Bickel or Paul Bator– at a minimum enshrined the idea of stare decisis and eschewed the idea of radical change in legal doctrine for political ends.

I can no longer say that with any confidence. You are doing far more— and far worse– than “calling balls and strikes.” You are allowing the Court to become an “errand boy” for an administration that has little respect for the rule of law.

The Court, under your leadership and with your votes, has wantonly flouted established precedent. Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others. The ideas of free speech and religious liberty have been transmogrified to allow officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination, as well as to elevate the grossest forms of political bribery beyond the ability of the federal government or states to rationally regulate it. More than a score of decisions during your tenure have overturned established precedents—some more than forty years old– and you voted with the majority in most. There is nothing “conservative” about this trend. This is radical “legal activism” at its worst.

Without trying to write a law review article, I believe that the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party, as vetted by the Federalist Society. Yes, politics has always been a factor in the Court’s history, but not to today’s extent. Even routine rules of statutory construction get subverted or ignored to achieve transparently political goals. The rationales of “textualism” and “originalism” are mere fig leaves masking right wing political goals; sheer casuistry.

Your public pronouncements suggest that you seem concerned about the legitimacy of the Court in today’s polarized environment. We all should be. Yet your actions, despite a few bromides about objectivity, say otherwise.

It is clear to me that your Court is willfully hurtling back to the cruel days of Lochner and even Plessy. The only constitutional freedoms ultimately recognized may soon be limited to those useful to wealthy, Republican, White, straight, Christian, and armed males— and the corporations they control. This is wrong. Period. This is not America.

I predict that your legacy will ultimately be as diminished as that of Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over both Plessy and Lochner. It still could become that of his revered fellow Justice John Harlan the elder, an honest conservative, but I doubt that it will. Feel free to prove me wrong.

The Supreme Court of the United States is respected when it wields authority and not mere power. As has often been said, you are infallible because you are final, but not the other way around.

I no longer have respect for you or your majority, and I have little hope for change. I can’t vote you out of office because you have life tenure, but I can withdraw whatever insignificant support my Bar membership might seem to provide.

Please remove my name from the rolls.

With deepest regret,

James Dannenberg

[Tribble]

Maybe he should have watched an episode or two of Picard, as throwing in the towel is rarely effective when facing far right activism. At best they don't give a damn and will just carry on as usual. At worst they'll feel even more emboldened and double down on their conservatism since they know their strategy is working and their opposition will eventually back down / resign rather than stand their ground.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its a difficult question: do you remain, and attempt damage control from within? A lot of folks tried that with Trump early on. They're pretty much all fired, resigned, or broken now. At what point does that course of action become untenable? Its a hard call.

I do think its helpful in that it damages Roberts' unearned reputation as a more moderate judge concerned with the courts' neutrality- a few votes aside, he seems increasingly to be pretty reliably in Trump's pocket.

[PainRack]

Maybe he should have watched an episode or two of Picard, as throwing in the towel is rarely effective when facing far right activism. At best they don't give a damn and will just carry on as usual. At worst they'll feel even more emboldened and double down on their conservatism since they know their strategy is working and their opposition will eventually back down / resign rather than stand their ground.

Do you know what we call Nazis who tried to steer Hitler plans away from insanity? Nazis

At one point or another, it's no longer worth being part of the establishment and calling for change.

[Tribble]

Maybe he should have watched an episode or two of Picard, as throwing in the towel is rarely effective when facing far right activism. At best they don't give a damn and will just carry on as usual. At worst they'll feel even more emboldened and double down on their conservatism since they know their strategy is working and their opposition will eventually back down / resign rather than stand their ground.

Do you know what we call Nazis who tried to steer Hitler plans away from insanity? Nazis

At one point or another, it's no longer worth being part of the establishment and calling for change.

By that logic all the Democrat appointed SCOTUS judges should resign too. I'm sure Republicans will appoint left-leaning judges as their replacements in order to keep the court balanced

Or are you suggesting at this stage that armed resistance is the only option?

[The Romulan Republic]

Maybe he should have watched an episode or two of Picard, as throwing in the towel is rarely effective when facing far right activism. At best they don't give a damn and will just carry on as usual. At worst they'll feel even more emboldened and double down on their conservatism since they know their strategy is working and their opposition will eventually back down / resign rather than stand their ground.

Do you know what we call Nazis who tried to steer Hitler plans away from insanity? Nazis

At one point or another, it's no longer worth being part of the establishment and calling for change.

By that logic all the Democrat appointed SCOTUS judges should resign too. I'm sure Republicans will appoint left-leaning judges as their replacements in order to keep the court balanced

Point taken.

Or are you suggesting at this stage that armed resistance is the only option?

Personally I'd rather call a national general strike and let the Republicans be the ones to fire the first shot if they will, but depending on what happens next November-January, it could easily end up there. I have absolutely no faith in Trump to leave peaceably.