Do you foresee Chief Justice Roberts EVER taking control of his court?

[CatWoman]

Or at this point is that even feasible?

Most Americans, according to polls, have little to no confidence in SCOTUS.

Thomas has been out of line for some time and he and his wife have shown nothing but contempt of the rule of law.

[jimfields33]

1. That's not his job. His job is to administer.

You think those three liberals want to be ruled by Robert’s? Nope and the other five probably don’t either.

[Historic NY]

2. Perhpas he should retire, soon.

[enough]

3. It's not "his" court, there's no mechanism for him to enforce some kind of moderation.

Each Justice is fully empowered.

[jonstl08]

4. Maybe

He has to know any decision regarding 1/6/21 which Thomas decides is going to be viewed as tainted. No idea if he can force Thomas to recuse himself from those cases but if he can he should. If Thomas refuses or he cannot force him to then I think Roberts should send out a statement before they hear arguments of those cases stating he believes a member should have been recused. Not a lawyer so no idea if that is a legal option.

[Ace Rothstein]

5. What does this even mean?

[CatWoman]

9. exactly what I said

[Ace Rothstein]

12. He isn't their boss.

It isn't his job to shape their opinions.

[Tetrachloride]

6. I foresee a chance of about 5 percent. Resignation of Thomas is required for this to be achieved

Roberts would need to be centrist as well.

[Lovie777]

7. No . . .

He's RWer.

[hlthe2b]

8. I believe that Alito has wrangled most of the conservatives against Roberts. Alito has harbored

resentment since his nomination to the court that, Roberts, nominated almost the same time received the nod for the Chief Justice position, not him. The scuttlebutt I've seen alluded to by court watchers and whatever leaks come out of SCOTUS from former clerks is that Alito is a constant back-stabber to Roberts--on nearly any issue so as to weaken him. And it has worked. Robert's last-minute change of vote to save Obamacare is the weapon Alito keeps on wielding.

[H2O Man]

13. +1

[SergeStorms]

18. I agree.

No one controls the SC, but Alito would love to try. He's as dangerous to the SC as Trump is to the Executive branch.

If I were Roberts I'd keep one eye on Alito at all times.

[Ohio Joe]

22. Interesting... I'd not heard that before...

It makes a lot of sense though.

[Ocelot II]

10. He isn't really the "boss" and he doesn't have all that much power.

His function is mainly administrative, and whatever power he does have is mostly in the function of assigning opinions. Apart from that, all he can do is try to persuade - he can't reprimand or punish other justices and he certainly can't fire them. I hope he corners Thomas in the men's room pretty soon and asks him what the actual fuck he and Ginni are up to, but Thomas can tell him to just bugger off. There's not much Roberts can do to round up this cat herd.

[CatWoman]

14. LOL!!!!

There's not much Roberts can do to round up this cat herd.

I like the way you put that

[njhoneybadger]

11. He already has, it's exactly what he wants it to be.

[dlk]

15. What we've seen from Roberts is what we're going to get

He said and did nothing when Clarence Thomas wouldn’t recuse from a case involving his wife. And it doesn’t look like the leaker of the Alito draft memo will ever be revealed, likely because the leaker is a prominent Republican. (Are you listening Ginny?)

[CatWoman]

16. for some reason, i've always felt like Roberts leaked the memo

[dlk]

17. You may be right

It was someone consequential, otherwise the leaker’s name would have been revealed by now. Republicans have corrupted and broken the Supreme Court and it will be up to Democrats to fix it.

[Baitball Blogger]

19. One chance that it can happen:

If public opinion radically changes against the hard right nutcases, and calls for removal of public servants who are hard right that acted in bad faith, and against our Constitution and Democracy.

[inthewind21]

20. Sure

How many times have you seen public opinion move anything lately?

[Baitball Blogger]

21. the BLM protests managed to put a kabosh on Scalia's push to give police full powers

in their police actions. Stop and frisks, which Scalia was mostly responsible for, is no longer considered good police practices. Not sure why someone doesn't do a research paper on the topic of how we're knocking down that line of thinking, using public opinion.

So, it could happen.