Long-time readers may remember a series of posts I wrote circa 2020 about the conflicts between Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kagan. One of my recurring themes was that the Chief Justice thought he was in control of the Court, but he clearly wasn't. Moreover, I suggested that the genesis of many of the leaks was due to frustration with the Court, and the Chief Justice's leadership in particular. Finally, I said that if the Chief could not right the ship, he should step down. To this day, people misunderstand my point. My call for resignation had nothing to do with any particular ruling or decision by Roberts that I disagreed with. If that was the litmus test, I would routinely call on the Court's progressives to call it quits. Rather, why would I tell Roberts--someone I agreed with about 90% of the time--to step down? The answer was a failure of leadership that was visible through publicly available information.
The leak in the Clean Power Plan case confirms much of how I've suspected the Chief manages his leadership of the Court.
Remember how John Roberts projects himself publicly. Roberts is an "institutionalist." He came to the Court wanting to reduce the number of 5-4 decisions. He didn't want the Court to seem partisan with teams on the right and teams on the left. He favored slow, incremental decisions.
