Just so the reader doesn’t unintentionally fall for a more innocuous meaning of the term that is certainly not intended, I will start with this from Urban Dictionary:

Skid Mark – A line of fecal matter in your underwear that varies in thickness from thin to meaty. Usually a result of poor asswiping skills.

[Emphasis added]

I think that is appropriately descriptive of the accumulating effect that the reluctance of “conservative” Chief Justice John Roberts to engage in the kind of required hygiene – specifically “asswiping” that the behavior of the district judiciary is demanding – is having on the (perceived) legitimacy of the judiciary in its entirety.

While I have been on a short Spring Break and then catching up on real work, many related items built up on my desktop. All linked through Professor Reynolds, the first:

Chief Justice Roberts Speaks

I think we need a sense of perspective.

Last year Representative AOC and other members of Congress introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito. As best as I can recall, Roberts said nothing about this. Likewise, the Federal Judges Association and the American Bar Association said not a word about the never-ending crusade against two members of the Supreme Court. These attacks were never about disclosures. These critics were trying to delegitimize the Court. Yet, everyone was silent.

Likewise, in 2023, Senator Ron Wyden told President Biden to “ignore” any ruling from Judge Matt Kacsmaryk concerning mifepristone. We aren’t talking about turning planes around over international waters. This would be a ruling that could be timely appealed in the normal course. Yet Roberts did not say a word about this in his end-of-year address or anywhere else. The FJA, the ABA, and all the usual suspects were silent. To the contrary, the Judicial Conference acceded to the criticism of Judge Kacsmaryk by trying to force down a rule to take cases away from him! I realize that Chief Justice Roberts is hitting the panic button, but his protest has started a bit too late. …

The Constitutional Crisis is a coin with two sides. Trump causes judges to overact, and judges cause Trump to overreact. Any resolution must be bilateral, not unilateral. Roberts could de-escalate the situation by promptly reversing some of these out-of-control lower court rulings. But instead, he would rather sit on his hands and pontificate. I’ve long said that the Chief Justice is living in a different reality than the rest of us. This episode proves it. There are three co-equal branches of government; the judiciary is not supreme.

Chief Justice Marshall had the good sense to avoid a confrontation with Presidents Jefferson and Jackson. But Roberts apparently thinks this sort of statement will make everything better. But every time Roberts puts pen to paper to avoid some perceived catastrophe, he usually invites an even greater one down the road. This is a lesson he has not learned during his tenure.

[Emphasis added]

The second:

Dear Chief Justice Roberts, Do Your Job

My take on Chief Justice Roberts admonition against impeaching federal district court judges: “So Chief Justice Roberts, if you want the normal appellate process to work, you have to make it work. You have to do your job. The Supreme Court needs to do its job, and the appeals courts need to do their jobs.” …

The problem is the normal appellate process has not been running. It has not been working. The district court judges have been deliberately framing their relief, their relief which will not ultimately hold up on appellate review, as temporary restraining orders so that there’s difficulty of review.

Twice the government went to the Supreme Court asking them to step in and stop this, and unfortunately the Supreme Court refused to do so.

Justice Alito issued a statement on behalf of the four conservatives in one of the cases where the judge, the district court judge, had ordered $2 billion in government contracts to be paid within 36 hours, not even knowing what the contracts were, and despite the government’s statement they wanted to review them to make sure there wasn’t fraud there. And the court—the three liberals plus Chief Justice Roberts plus Justice Barrett—refused to hear the case, and Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh issued a powerful statement that the court has not met its obligation—meaning the Supreme Court has not met its obligation—to make sure that the district courts stay within their constitutional bounds. …

So Chief Justice Roberts, if you want the normal appellate process to work, you have to make it work. You have to do your job. The Supreme Court needs to do its job, and the appeals courts need to do their jobs.

[Emphasis added]

And, the third:

This Mess Is of Your Own Making, Chief Justice Roberts – Nobody voted for judicial supremacy, and it certainly wasn’t the Founding Fathers’ intent.

Several days back, when one of the near-countless cases of judicial overreach in which partisan Democrat operatives in black robes issued absurd orders delaying presidential orders involving immigration issues or spending reforms or other changes well within the sole purview of the executive branch made its way to the Supreme Court for review, this column discussed a piece by the Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson that shredded the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett for siding with the Democrats. …

“… The correct ruling would have been a sharp rebuke of the district court on jurisdictional grounds and an unmistakable signal that these restraining orders are all null and void, and it’s time for the courts to stop granting them. It was an act of cowardice and dereliction by the constitutional court not to provide a clear statement of constitutional law when given an opportunity. …Do better, dammit.” …

John Roberts does an absolutely awful job of dispelling the rumors and belief that he’s compromised by some scandal or blackmail not yet known to the public. For a decade his rulings and statements have seemed to be more understandable viewed in such a light, and this looks very much to fit within that pattern. …

From the beginning, this column has held that the President is not bound by a pipsqueak political activist judge at the district court level and that Trump should force those judges to get backing from the Supreme Court, the one empowered by the Constitution as an equal branch of government, in order to give weight to their rulings. It seems like that’s where we’re inevitably headed at this point. …

But the coming showdown could easily have been averted two weeks ago, and Roberts and Barrett blew it. This is all Roberts’s fault. And he has absolutely no room to lecture anyone else about judicial impeachments.

Fix the problem, Mr. Chief Justice. Stop complaining about efforts to do it for you.

[Emphasis added]

Go read all three in their entirety. Heck, bookmark them too. Together they define a suitable marker for the state of the mess here in late March. There will be much more to say on this topic as the Roberts Skid Mark gets thicker, meatier, and so much smellier.