Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing on her nomination to the U.

Chief Justice John Roberts closed the Supreme Court's 2025 year-end report with a quote from former President Calvin Coolidge, recalling his 1926 address marking the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

I did not know this. Supreme Court justices take two oaths. The first is a promise to support the Constitution. The second, a judicial oath, is more specific.

Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts released his 2025 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary. Readers hoping to find therein the Chief Justice's take on an extraordinary year of confrontation between the federal district courts and the second Trump administration or an explanation for the Supreme Court's increased use of the emergency docket to stay lower court decisions enjoining the administration's most aggressive actions on personnel, funding, immigration, and more will be disappointed.

Roberts lauds importance of an independent judiciary to end 2025 Roberts spent most of his end-of-year report discussing the history of the country's founding and the Declaration of Independence ahead of its 250th anniversary in July.

In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just before breaking for the holidays the Supreme Court held that President Donald Trump acted improperly in federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and in activating troops across the state.