Friday, October 16, 2026

AN OPEN LETTER TO CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: CONGRATULATIONS, YOU BUILT THE MONSTER


AN OPEN LETTER TO CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: CONGRATULATIONS, YOU BUILT THE MONSTER


A Satirical Editorial on Presidential Power, Constitutional Hubris, and the Bill Coming Due

The following is a work of political satire. All legal theories referenced are real. The monster, unfortunately, is also real.

Dear Dr. Frankenstein — I Mean, Chief Justice Roberts

Dear Chief Justice Roberts,

How are you sleeping these days? Comfortably, we hope — though we suspect the answer is somewhere between "fitfully" and "with one eye open and a copy of Federalist No. 70 clutched to your chest like a security blanket."

We write to you today not in anger — well, mostly not in anger — but in the spirit of constructive dialogue between a nation slowly watching its democratic guardrails get stripped for parts and the man who handed someone the toolbox.

You see, Chief Justice, there's a classic story about a brilliant scientist who, in his boundless intellectual confidence, assembled a creature from mismatched pieces and breathed life into it. The scientist was very proud of his work. The villagers were considerably less enthusiastic. We believe you know where this is going.

The creature's name, in this particular retelling, is the Unitary Executive Theory — and the monster it animated is currently redecorating the Oval Office, firing inspectors general for sport, and eyeing the 2026 midterms the way a raccoon eyes an unsecured trash can.

What You Built, Sir, and How You Built It

Let's be precise here, because precision is something the Court allegedly values — at least on the days it isn't busy rewriting two centuries of precedent before lunch.

The modern unitary executive didn't spring fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. It was assembled, case by painstaking case, by a conservative majority that looked at the administrative state and said, with the confidence of men who have never personally waited on hold with a federal agency: "The President should control all of this."

The roadmap reads like a greatest-hits album nobody asked for:

Each ruling, taken individually, seemed like a reasonable tidying-up of administrative law. Together, they constructed something that, in the wrong hands, functions less like a constitutional framework and more like a permission slip — laminated, notarized, and handed directly to a man who has never, in recorded history, used a permission slip for its intended purpose.

You built the lab, Chief Justice. You refined the formula. You threw the switch.

And then you looked mildly uncomfortable when the monster started walking.

On Your Distinguished Colleagues, Justices Alito and Thomas

We should pause here to acknowledge that you, Chief Justice, have at least occasionally demonstrated what legal scholars charitably call "institutional concern" — that faint, pained expression you wear when the Court is asked to do something that will end up in a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Your colleagues Justices Alito and Thomas, however, appear to have no such reservations.

Justice Thomas, bless his originalist heart, has approached the unitary executive with the enthusiasm of a man who has found the one constitutional theory that justifies everything he already wanted to do. He does not merely accept the theory — he expands it, deepens it, and occasionally writes concurrences suggesting the majority didn't go nearly far enough.

Justice Alito, meanwhile, has cultivated a particular talent for writing opinions that read like they were drafted in a private club where the membership requirements include a strong opinion about the administrative state and a casual relationship with the concept of judicial ethics.

When the current occupant of the Oval Office enters a room, these two gentlemen do not merely rule in his favor — they lean into it with the energy of men who have found their life's purpose. The rest of us find this somewhat alarming.

You, Chief Justice, at least have the decency to look conflicted. We appreciate that. It is, admittedly, a low bar — but in the current climate, we are grateful for whatever we can get.

Here Is Where We Humbly Request You Fix This

Chief Justice Roberts, here is the thing about being the architect of a constitutional monster: you also have the tools to put it back in the cage.

The 2026 midterm elections are approaching. And the monster — emboldened by years of jurisprudence confirming that the President controls everything in the executive branch — has begun casting hungry eyes toward the electoral process itself.

Here is what we need you to remember, and what we need you to say loudly, clearly, and in an opinion that even cable news anchors can summarize in under thirty seconds:

The Constitution does not mention the Unitary Executive Theory. Not once. Not in Article II. Not in a footnote. Not in the margins. It is not there.

What is there — in plain, unambiguous, Founders-actually-wrote-this text — is the Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4), which vests the administration of federal elections in the states, with Congress holding supervisory authority. The President is not mentioned. The executive branch is not mentioned. The Oval Office has approximately as much constitutional authority over the mechanics of your local polling place as it does over the weather.

This is not a close call. This is not a living-document interpretation. This is not even a particularly interesting legal question. It is simply what the Constitution says — the document that, we are told, the originalists on your bench have committed to memory and hold more sacred than anything short of a Federalist Paper signed by Hamilton himself.

So here is our modest proposal, Chief Justice:

Issue a preemptive, clear, and unambiguous ruling — or at minimum a strong administrative signal — that federal executive power does not extend to the administration, interference with, or manipulation of state-run elections.

Not because it is politically convenient. Not because it will make anyone popular. But because it is correct, it is constitutional, and frankly, it will save your Court approximately four hundred emergency injunctions, three hundred and fifty circuit appeals, and what promises to be a truly exhausting docket of election-related chaos that will make Bush v. Gore look like a minor scheduling dispute.

You will, in one stroke, accomplish the following:

  • ✅ Reaffirm that states run elections — as the Constitution actually says
  • ✅ Draw a clear line that executive power, however "unitary," does not reach into the ballot box
  • ✅ Spare the federal judiciary an absolute avalanche of litigation
  • ✅ Begin — begin, mind you — the long process of redeeming your legacy from the footnote it is currently careening toward

A Brief Note on What You Will NOT Find in Article II

Since we are all committed to reading the Constitution carefully, let us conduct a brief textual exercise.

Here is what Article II does say: The executive power shall be vested in a President. The President shall be Commander in Chief. The President shall have the power to make treaties, appoint officers, and ensure the laws are faithfully executed.

Here is what Article II does not say:

  • ❌ "...and also the President may restructure, supervise, or otherwise meddle with the administration of state elections"
  • ❌ "...the President's power is unitary, absolute, and not subject to congressional limitation of any kind"
  • ❌ "...Schedule F is hereby authorized"
  • ❌ "...independent agencies are unconstitutional, actually"
  • ❌ "...the Framers intended all of this, trust us"

The Unitary Executive Theory is, at its core, a theory — an academic and legal construction built over decades by scholars and jurists who looked at Article II and decided to read between lines that the Founders, apparently, forgot to write. It is not scripture. It is not settled law. It is a choice — and choices, Chief Justice, can be revisited.

The Redemption Arc Is Still Available

Here is the good news, Chief Justice Roberts: history is not yet finished writing your chapter.

You have, on occasion, surprised us. You saved the Affordable Care Act — twice — when the institutional pressure to do otherwise was considerable. You have, in moments of genuine judicial courage, chosen the long view over the expedient one.

This is another such moment.

The monster you helped build is large, loud, and currently eyeing the machinery of American democracy with an appetite that should concern everyone — including, we suspect, you. The theory that empowered it was always more elastic than its proponents admitted, and it has been stretched, in practice, well beyond anything even its architects intended.

You cannot un-ring the bell of Seila Law. You cannot pretend Free Enterprise Fund didn't happen. But you can draw a line — a clear, constitutional, textually grounded line — around the one thing that the entire American experiment depends on:

Free and fair elections, administered by the states, free from executive interference.

That line is not radical. It is not activist. It is not even particularly creative. It is simply what the Constitution says, which is, we are told, the whole point.

So do it, Chief Justice. Draw the line. Tell the monster where it cannot go.

You are, after all, Supreme.

And you owe us one.

Respectfully, sarcastically, and with the full weight of civic desperation,

The American Public (The ones who actually have to live in the country your opinions build)

This article is political satire. All constitutional citations are accurate. The monster metaphor is, regrettably, also accurate.




Sources & Citations

⚖️ Supreme Court Cases — Primary Sources

1. Myers v. United States (1926)

The foundational case establishing broad presidential removal power over executive officers.

2. Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935)

Established the constitutionality of independent agencies insulated from presidential removal.

3. Morrison v. Olson (1988)

Upheld the independent counsel statute and "good cause" removal protections.

4. Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (2010)

Struck down dual-layer removal protections as unconstitutional.

5. Seila Law LLC v. CFPB (2020)

The landmark Roberts opinion reinforcing unitary executive theory against single-director independent agencies.

6. Collins v. Yellen (2021)

Extended Seila Law to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

📖 The Unitary Executive Theory — Academic & Legal Analysis

🗳️ Elections Clause & State Authority Over Elections

🏛️ Trump Administration & Unitary Executive in Practice

🔑 Quick Reference Summary Table

Source TypeBest ResourceUse For
Case Law (Primary)Justia / Oyez / Supreme CourtFull opinions & case history
Plain-Language LawCornell LII / BallotpediaAccessible legal definitions
Critical AnalysisBrennan Center / ACS LawScholarly critique of doctrine
Political ContextBrookings / Federal RegisterPolicy & executive action tracking
Academic DepthHarvard Law Review / U ChicagoDeep jurisprudential analysis

All links reference publicly available, non-paywalled sources wherever possible. Supreme Court PDF opinions are official government documents available at supremecourt.gov.





Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)