A Modern PROMETHEUS

From ushering in Citizens United to granting vast immunity powers, John Roberts paved the way for Donald Trump's destructive second term

- By Cristian Farias

FORGOTTEN IN THE arc of John Roberts’s nearly two decades as chief justice of the United States is his role, behind the scenes, to herald the result in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. No, he didn’t write the ruling that ushered in our current era of corporations and billionaires buying the presidency of the United States and other offices. But he can be credited with moving the chess pieces that made that sweeping landmark, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, possible.

One version of the story finds Roberts so spooked by an unpublished dissenting opinion by outgoing justice David Souter that the chief moved heaven and earth so that that document would never see the light of day. In it, Souter, a Republican and a big defender of campaign finance laws, called out Roberts for twisting the Supreme Court’s own internal rules to arrive at a far-reaching outcome in an otherwise small-bore dispute—in this case, a decree that the First Amendment places no limits on so-called “independent” corporate and union expenditures in our elections.

That's not the legal question the Supreme Court had been asked to decide. And so other versions of this palace intrigue find Souter pleading with Roberts, and the rest of the court, to not overrule prior precedents curbing the influence of money in politics—and to rehear the case so that those precedents could get a second look and a fresh round of briefing and argument. Souter got his parting gift: On the final day before the Supreme Court broke for its summer break in June 2009, Roberts announced that the case would be reargued at a later hearing. Immediately thereafter, as his last order of business that day, the chief also announced “with sadness that this is the last session in which our friend and colleague, Justice David Souter, will be on the bench with us.” Problem solved. By the next January, Citizens United would become the law of the land.