The Supreme Court’s Originalism Is Dead, Dead, Dead

The Supreme Court is destroying originalism in order to save it. In Trump v. Cook, Chief Justice John Roberts, a supposed originalist, bypassed the theory in favor of a five-year-old doctrine known as “history and tradition.” That allowed the court to preserve the independence of the Federal Reserve — even as, in a separate decision issued the same day, it invoked originalist principles to end the independence of all other federal agencies.