The debate over the role of traditionalism in constitutional interpretation has itself become a tradition. It remains a popular and controversial topic among constitutional scholars and presents normative questions that are as divisive, difficult, and important today as at the Founding. Missing from the discussion, however, is a comprehensive account of how the Supreme Court has employed traditionalism - an approach that looks for meaning in present manifestations of longstanding practices or beliefs - in its constitutional jurisprudence. This project is the first to fill this significant gap in the literature by providing an exhaustive and systematic analysis of the Court’s use of constitutional traditionalism. This Article focuses on the Roberts Court’s first five terms to provide an empirical foundation that will not only offer previously unavailable insights into the Court’s current traditionalist practices, but will also set forth a useful framework for the ongoing normative debate over traditionalism.

This project uses content analysis of key terms to identify every instance in which the Roberts Court employed traditionalism to interpret the Constitution. More specifically, this project set out to answer the following three questions: first, how frequently does the Roberts Court employ traditionalism in its constitutional jurisprudence?, second, how robust is the Court’s use of traditionalism (i.e., is it used to interpret a broad or narrow range of constitutional provisions)?, and finally, how often and in what contexts do individual justices on the Roberts Court rely on traditionalism in their own constitutional opinions? The research provided here suggests answers to all three of these questions. First, the data indicate that traditionalism has been relied upon regularly by the Roberts Court, appearing in nearly half of the Court’s constitutional cases. Second, traditionalism is frequently applied to a wide variety of constitutional provisions: two-thirds of the constitutional provisions considered by the Roberts Court were subjected to a traditionalist analysis, and ranged from provisions pertaining to government power and structure to individual rights. Finally, the data show that although traditionalism is used more frequently by conservative justices, it is nevertheless employed by all members of the Court in a wide variety of contexts. Although there is more to learn about traditionalism’s role in the Court’s constitutional jurisprudence, this evidence makes clear that notwithstanding the normative controversy surrounding traditionalism, any future study of the workings of this Court, its members, or of the future direction of constitutional law in general must take traditionalism into account.

Supreme Court recusal is one of the most timely and hotly contested issues in American law. Recent debate over when justices should be precluded from deciding certain cases has included public calls for the exclusion of Justices Thomas and Kagan from any future cases addressing the constitutionality of the controversial Affordable Care Act, the congressional testimony of two sitting justices, a letter from over 130 law professors successfully prodding Congress to introduce a new Supreme Court recusal reform bill, and numerous editorials in national print and electronic media outlets. Among the wide variety of voices in the discussion, a singular theme has emerged - more rigorous congressional regulation of Supreme Court recusal practice is needed to protect the integrity and legitimacy of the Court.

This discussion, however, misses the point. Lost in the impassioned debate about when justices should recuse themselves is a far more important and fundamental constitutional question: who should make that decision? This issue is at the core of our constitutional separation of powers and federalism principles, and should take center stage in the debate over Supreme Court recusal. This Article is the first to comprehensively apply separation of powers principles to the question of Supreme Court recusal, and argues that the Constitution requires that the Supreme Court be the sole arbiter of its own recusal standards. This argument shifts the focus of the debate from an ineffectual and unrealistic congressional command model, based primarily on notions of judicial ethics, to a more fundamental constitutional inquiry into the proper exercise of legislative and judicial authority. While this Article represents a significant break from current orthodoxy, it is imperative to situate the Court’s recusal decisions within the proper normative framework. Understanding the unconstitutionality of Supreme Court recusal standards should yield a more useful and transparent dialogue about the Court’s recusal practices going forward.