This Politico piece is based entirely on a faulty premise. Chief Justice John Roberts does not "genuinely believe that the Supreme Court should be above partisanship." The only reason to believe that is if you take Justice Robert's rhetoric at face value and completely ignore his voting record and decisions. Justice Roberts certainly wants to portray the Court as being above partisanship, and he is committed to an incrementalist approach to the overall project to impose his Republican values on the American legal system so it is not too obvious what he is doing.
Justice Robert's is simply a fraud. While he had managed to be the most popular current Justice, that is largely because of the way he is covered in the media, by reporters who have largely bought into his marketing as a "moderate" who just calls it like he sees it. On big issues, where huge power grabs by his political party are at stake, Justice Roberts will not hesitate to use the Court to advance his political program.
Want an example? Take Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and permitted Southern States to aggressively gerrymander their House seats to assure that black people (and by extension Democrats) are severely underrepresented in their House delegations. By any measure, this case is a crystal clear example of judicial activism. The decision concluded that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional without ever identifying any language in the Constitution that it violated. Indeed, Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment expressly gives Congress the power to pass laws to protect against racial discrimination in the right to vote, and the Supreme Court had previously upheld that provision of the VRA was constitutional several times before. The majority opinion in Shelby County didn't overturn those earlier decision. Instead, the author just decided that racial discrimination was no longer a big problem in election, so that section of the Act was no longer necessary. Nevermind that Congress had held hearings on the role of racial discrimination and issued hundreds of pages of findings about how it persists as a problem before reauthorizing the VRA in 2006, by an overwhelming vote in the House (390-33) and a unanimous vote in the Senate (98-0). The five Justices of the Shelby County majority essentially overruled the fact-finding supported by 488 members of Congress and disregarded at least three prior Supreme Court decisions, to find the law unconstitutional without any textual basis in the Constitution. Isn't that a perfect example of what conservatives used to call "legislating from the bench?" Who was the author of that horrendous decision (that, as everyone predicted, gave Republicans a clear advantage in controlling the House)? Why Chief Justice "balls and strikes" himself!
The Politico piece could only be written by someone who pays almost no attention to Justice Roberts' actual published opinions, and instead focuses on the times he has vote with more liberal members to make sure the Court imposes Republican orthodoxy at a slower pace. Incrementalism has been a huge P.R. success for Roberts, allowing ignorant reporters (who don't seem to read opinions, they just count the votes for how the cases turn out) to repeat the lie that Roberts is some kind of closet liberal or moderate.
So no, there is zero chance that Roberts will willingly resign during the Biden presidency. To think otherwise is absurdly ignorant.
