The last migratory pattern is more recent and certainly less welcomed. In past years, liberal protesters have descended on the homes of conservative justices to disrupt their lives, shout abuses, and, in one case involving Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seek to kill a member of the Court. Protesters outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett left bloody dolls on the lawn, knowing that she had young children inside.
This week, the protesters appeared at the vacation home of Chief Justice John Roberts in Maine. Calling themselves “kayak-tivists,” they formed flotillas facing his home to hold up signs and voice their displeasure at the jurist.
It is an ironic moment for a Chief Justice who has been regularly attacked by President Donald Trump for voting against his position in major cases ranging from tariffs to birthright citizenship. However, this is about rage not reason. Back in 2022, Becca Shaw Glaser wrote about how Mainers needed to harass Roberts whenever he ventured out of his home.
She wrote:
“Roberts is one of the most powerful people in the entire world. He comes to Maine to unwind and feel good about himself and his decisions, despite if he has just gutted our rights, forcing rape victims to give birth after an arbitrary time period determined by the government, gutted environmental protections, overruled basic gun regulations, decreed against the separation of church and state, and made politics much more unequal and infested with money.
Exactly why should we continue to let Roberts use Maine as his easygoing backdrop for fun and relaxation? Why should Roberts get to breathe in the beautiful Maine air when he is fine with destroying methods of keeping our air clean?…
Maine is not here as your happy place, your wind-down from all of your hard work destroying my civil liberties and democracy. No. May you never feel welcome here again…”
Glaser, who was later dropped as a columnist, has pushed Mainers to hound Roberts wherever he goes in Maine:
“Should you see Chief Justice John Roberts duck into Squid Ink coffee or the Port Clyde General Store this summer, consider letting him know exactly what you think of him and his illegitimate, ultra-conservative court. Yell, boo, whisper, weep audibly, give him the thumbs down or the finger, hand him a note, refuse to serve him.”
In its recent discussion of these protesters, the New York Times features Glaser and reveals how last year Glaser was approached by Roberts’ daughter, Josephine, who sought to defend her Dad during one of Glaser’s harassing protests. The Times recounts how liberals have been pushed to the breaking point by Roberts despite the fact that he has had to curtail his movement around the island.
One of the featured suffering locals is Wendy Schlotterbeck, who was outraged when Roberts was spotted celebrating the Fourth of July on the island. The Times sympathetically explains the outrage since “[Roberts] and his colleagues had just narrowed protections for transgender athletes and minors and allowed Trump’s immigration crackdown to proceed.” It recounts how Schlotterbeck has transgender relatives and “immigrant friends of hers [have] been arrested.” Outraged, she left the picnic and, the next day, joined the “kayak-tivists” outside Roberts’ home.
Protesting outside the home of a Supreme Court justice is a crime, though some of us have questioned the constitutionality of such laws. Putting that debate aside, the protests should be condemned by all Americans as reckless and wrong.
Justices may hold different views on the left or the right, but they are all people of good faith who are trying to protect what they consider the essential rights of our Republic. (Liberal justices have largely been spared such protests at their homes, though occasional protests have occurred).
What is maddening is that this Court has continued to show its independence in ruling with the law rather than a partisan agenda. Unlike those on the left who want to pack the Court with an instant liberal majority (in the name of fighting partisanship), the Court continues to vote overwhelmingly on a unanimous or nearly unanimous basis. The conservative majority also continues to rule against the Trump Administration when the law requires it.
This term has many potential blockbuster decisions and the protesters are expected to return to the homes of justices around Washington. We have every right to debate, and indeed protest, such decisions. However, we should all unite around all of these justices — on the left and the right — in denouncing these protesters literally bobbing and floating on a sea of rage.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”