The Roberts Court: Major Rulings, Ethics, and Reform

The Roberts Court is the Supreme Court of the United States as it has operated under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was sworn in on September 29, 2005. Over two decades it has moved from a bench defined by a single swing vote to one controlled by a six-justice conservative majority, producing rulings that ended the constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights, dismantled race-conscious college admissions, granted presidents broad criminal immunity, and stripped federal agencies of the deference courts had given them for forty years.

Who Sits on the Court

President George W. Bush nominated Roberts in July 2005 to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, then re-nominated him for the center seat after Chief Justice William Rehnquist died that September. The Senate confirmed him 78 to 22.¹ At his hearings he described himself as a “modest judge” and compared the role to an umpire calling balls and strikes.²

As of June 2026, the nine justices are Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The lineup has been stable since Jackson replaced Justice Stephen Breyer on June 30, 2022.³

The current majority took shape in a short span. Neil Gorsuch arrived in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, and Amy Coney Barrett took Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat in 2020. Before those appointments, Kennedy often cast the fifth vote and liberal justices could still assemble majorities on contested questions. After Barrett, the six conservatives have aligned consistently on abortion, guns, affirmative action, and voting, and unanimous rulings have declined from roughly 50 percent in 2022 to 42 percent in the 2024–25 term.⁴

The bloc is not monolithic. Gorsuch has joined the liberal justices in textualist and Indian-law cases, including McGirt v. Oklahoma, where he wrote for a five-to-four majority recognizing tribal reservations in eastern Oklahoma. Roberts and Kavanaugh sometimes join the liberals when institutional restraint is at stake, and Barrett has at times resisted broad conservative positions.⁵

The Decisions That Define the Court

Abortion

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, decided June 24, 2022, the Court overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), holding that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and returning the issue to the states. Justice Alito wrote for the majority, joined by Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, calling Roe “egregiously wrong” and Casey‘s “undue burden” test unworkable.⁶ Chief Justice Roberts concurred in the judgment only, preferring what he called a “more measured course” that would have upheld Mississippi’s 15-week ban without discarding Roe. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented jointly.⁷

Gun Rights

The Court established an individual right to bear arms in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and extended it to the states in McDonald v. Chicago (2010). The transformative ruling came in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), where Justice Thomas wrote for a six-to-three majority recognizing a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. Bruen replaced the two-step test lower courts had used with a new rule: if the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the conduct, the government must show its regulation is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”⁸ Justice Breyer’s dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan, called the history-only approach “deeply impractical.”⁹

College Admissions

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), the Court ruled six to three that race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause. Roberts wrote that the programs lacked coherent objectives, used race as a “negative” against certain groups, and had no logical end point.¹⁰ The ruling ended more than four decades of race-conscious admissions and has prompted broader challenges to diversity programs in other sectors.¹¹

Same-Sex Marriage and LGBTQ Rights

In Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Court held five to four that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages. Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion identified marriage as a fundamental liberty grounded in autonomy and the protection of families.¹² Roberts dissented, arguing the question should have been left to the democratic process.¹³ Five years later, Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) held that firing someone for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Healthcare

The Court has preserved the Affordable Care Act in three separate challenges. In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), Roberts provided the fifth vote to uphold the individual mandate as a tax, while striking down the Medicaid expansion as unconstitutionally coercive insofar as it threatened states with the loss of all existing Medicaid funding for noncompliance.¹⁴ In King v. Burwell (2015), Roberts wrote for a six-to-three majority preserving tax credits for insurance purchased through federal exchanges.¹⁵ In California v. Texas (2021), the Court ruled seven to two that challengers lacked standing to attack the law after Congress zeroed out the mandate penalty.¹⁶

Campaign Finance and Voting

In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Court ruled five to four that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions.¹⁷ Combined with a lower-court ruling that created super PACs, the decision reshaped political spending: super PACs spent approximately $6.4 billion on federal elections from 2010 to 2022, and at least $2.7 billion in the 2024 cycle alone.¹⁸

On voting rights, Shelby County v. Holder (2013) struck down the coverage formula in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, ending the federal preclearance regime for jurisdictions with a history of discrimination.¹⁹ In the current term, Louisiana v. Callais further narrowed the Act, making minority vote-dilution claims harder to win.²⁰ One counterexample: in Allen v. Milligan (2023), Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the liberals to strike down an Alabama redistricting map under Section 2.⁵

Presidential Power

In Trump v. United States, decided July 1, 2024, the Court held that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority, and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts within the “outer perimeter” of presidential responsibility. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.²¹ Roberts wrote the majority opinion and barred prosecutors from using evidence of immune official acts to prove other charges. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, wrote that the decision “reshapes the institution of the Presidency” and makes the president “a king above the law.”²²

The End of Chevron and the Major Questions Doctrine

The Court has reshaped how federal agencies make policy. The “major questions doctrine” allows courts to block agency action on matters of vast economic or political significance when Congress has not spoken clearly. Roberts applied it in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) to strike down an Obama-era climate regulation and in Biden v. Nebraska (2023) to invalidate the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program.²³ Justice Kagan’s West Virginia dissent called the doctrine a “get-out-of-text free card.”²⁴

Then came Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, decided June 28, 2024, which overruled the 1984 Chevron doctrine. For forty years, Chevron required courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Roberts, writing for a six-to-three majority, held that Chevron was inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act and Article III, and directed courts to exercise independent judgment. The Court left intact Skidmore deference, under which an agency’s reading can carry persuasive weight based on expertise and consistency, but removed the automatic presumption.²⁵

Religion

Religious claimants have won every formal religious-liberty case decided by the Court since Barrett joined, up from 83 percent before her arrival.²⁶ Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020) held that religious schools cannot be excluded from public-benefit programs based on religious status, and Carson v. Makin (2022) extended that to state tuition-assistance programs. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) upheld a public-school football coach’s right to pray on the field after games, abandoning more than fifty years of Establishment Clause precedent in favor of a “history and tradition” test.²⁷

The Shadow Docket

The Court has increasingly decided consequential matters through its emergency docket, often without full briefing, oral argument, or signed opinions. Volume has climbed sharply: 44 emergency matters during the 2023–24 term and 113 during the 2024–25 term.²⁸ Notable shadow-docket actions include the refusal to block Texas’s SB 8 abortion ban, the ruling in favor of a Brooklyn Catholic diocese challenging COVID-19 capacity limits on religious services, and emergency orders involving the Trump administration’s authority to fire leaders of independent agencies. In its first five months, the Trump administration filed 19 emergency requests, matching the total filed by the Biden administration over four years. The Obama and Bush administrations combined filed only eight between 2001 and 2017.²⁹

Dissenting in Trump v. Wilcox, Justice Kagan wrote: “Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law.”²⁸

Ethics Controversies

ProPublica reported in 2023 that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted undisclosed luxury travel from Republican donor Harlan Crow for more than two decades, including international cruises on Crow’s 162-foot superyacht and private-jet flights. ProPublica estimated that one 2019 Indonesia trip alone could have exceeded $500,000 in value. Crow also purchased real estate from Thomas and paid private school tuition for a relative Thomas was raising.³⁰ By 2024, documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee put the total value of disclosed and undisclosed gifts to Thomas at nearly $4.2 million over two decades.³¹

Justice Alito faced a separate controversy over flags displayed at his homes. An upside-down American flag flew outside his Virginia residence in January 2021, and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, carried by rioters at the Capitol on January 6, was displayed at his New Jersey beach house in the summer of 2023.³² Alito attributed the inverted flag to his wife and declined to recuse from January 6-related cases, stating the decision was his alone under the Court’s ethics code.³³ Senators Durbin and Blumenthal called for his recusal; no formal action resulted.³⁴

Under pressure, the Court adopted a formal code of conduct on November 13, 2023, the first in its history. Critics noted it has no enforcement mechanism.³⁵ In his 2011 Year-End Report, Roberts had said the Court did not need a code, calling the justices “jurists of exceptional integrity and experience.”³⁶

Reform Proposals

President Biden established a bipartisan presidential commission to study Supreme Court reform in April 2021. It issued a final report that December without taking a position on specific proposals.³⁷ On July 29, 2024, Biden proposed three changes: 18-year term limits with a new appointment every two years, a binding and enforceable code of conduct, and a constitutional amendment clarifying that presidents do not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution.³⁸

Congressional Democrats introduced several bills during the 118th Congress, including the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act, which would mandate a binding code and create an investigation mechanism.³¹ None advanced to passage. Constitutional amendments face steep odds, requiring supermajorities in both chambers and ratification by three-quarters of the states. Whether Congress can impose term limits by statute remains contested; the Congressional Research Service reported in December 2023 that most commentators believe it cannot.³⁷

What’s Pending in the 2025–26 Term

The Court has already issued one major cross-ideological ruling this term. In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided February 20, 2026, the Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs, striking down the Trump administration’s sweeping duties on imports from Canada, Mexico, China, and dozens of other nations.³⁹ Roberts wrote the opinion for a six-to-three coalition that included Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson, with Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito dissenting.⁴⁰

As of mid-June 2026, the Court still has roughly two dozen opinions to issue. The most closely watched pending cases include:

Birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, where at least five justices appeared skeptical at April’s oral argument of the administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for children of parents in the country illegally or on temporary visas.²⁰
Agency independence in Trump v. Cook and Trump v. Slaughter. The Court has so far refused to allow the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, while granting a stay permitting the firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter during litigation.⁴¹
Transgender athletes in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., where the Court appears poised to uphold state bans on transgender women and girls competing on women’s sports teams.²⁰
Geofence warrants in Chatrie v. United States, examining whether law enforcement can obtain location data from tech companies for all users in a specified area.⁴¹

1
George W. Bush White House Archives. John G. Roberts Jr.
2
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3
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4
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5
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6
Supreme Court of the United States. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392
7
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8
Supreme Court of the United States. NYSRPA v. Bruen, No. 20-843
9
Cornell Law Institute. The Bruen Decision and Concealed-Carry Licenses
10
Supreme Court of the United States. Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, No. 20-1199
11
Stanford Law School. Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard – FAQ
12
Cornell Law Institute. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644
13
Oyez. Obergefell v. Hodges
14
Justia. NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519
15
Justia. King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473
16
SCOTUSblog. Court Again Leaves Affordable Care Act in Place
17
Justia. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310
18
Brennan Center for Justice. Citizens United Explained
19
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20
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21
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22
SCOTUSblog. Justices Rule Trump Has Some Immunity From Prosecution
23
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24
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25
American Bar Association. End of Chevron Deference – What Does It Mean
26
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27
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28
SCOTUSblog. Why the Shadow Docket Should Concern Us All
29
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30
ProPublica. Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire
31
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Durbin Reveals Omissions of Gifted Private Travel
32
New York Times. Justice Alito Flew an Appeal to Heaven Flag
33
PBS NewsHour. Former Neighbor Disputes Alito’s Explanation
34
Forbes. Democrats Urge Justice Alito to Recuse
35
ProPublica. Friends of the Court
36
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37
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38
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39
Supreme Court of the United States. Learning Resources v. Trump, No. 24-1287
40
SCOTUSblog. A Breakdown of the Court’s Tariff Decision
41
NPR. Supreme Court Major Cases Left 2026