Just minutes apart Monday morning, Chief Justice John Roberts handed down two of the most consequential separation-of-powers opinions of the Supreme Court’s October 2025 term.
In one, he overruled one of the New Deal’s foundational precedents and dramatically restored presidential control over the executive branch. In the other, he preserved the independence of the nation’s most powerful economic institution by denying the president authority to remove a Federal Reserve governor at will. Both opinions were written by Roberts. Both relied heavily on history. And taken together, they reveal a chief justice once again attempting to split the baby between constitutional principle and institutional pragmatism.
