There was relatively little discussion about the role of the Chief Justice at the time
of the framing, and the Constitution itself says relatively little about the Chief
Justice.
The only mention of a Chief Justice in the Constitution is in Article I, Section 3,
which provides that when a President is impeached, the Chief Justice should supervise the trial.
The Constitution really left to Congress, uh, the responsibility of specifying the powers
of the Chief Justice and indeed of the Justices of the Supreme Court, uh, more generally,
and many of the powers of the Chief Justice have evolved really as a matter of custom
rather than as a matter of, uh, legal, uh, mandate or responsibility.
The Chief Justice of the United States is a position that was originally established
by The Judiciary Act of 1789, and the Chief Justice has, uh, certain responsibilities
that are assigned, uh, by Congress.
The Chief Justice is a separate position on the Supreme Court, and so the President has
to nominate someone to become the Chief Justice.
There have been 17 Chief Justices in American history.
Five of them had previously served as Associate Justices on the court, uh, but that is not
a requirement.
Anyone can be nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States.
The principal daily responsibilities of the Chief Justice are threefold.
First, to preside over oral arguments at the court.
Uh, second, to run the court's, uh, internal business, uh, including to preside over meetings
of the Justices when the Justices are deciding how cases should come out or which cases the
court should hear.
And, third, the Chief Justice has a significant administrative responsibility as the formal
head of the federal court system.
At oral argument, the Chief Justice presides over the proceedings, and so he, uh, announces
each case, he guides the questioning.
If more than one Justice asks a question at once, he determines, uh, who gets to go first.
Uh, and, of course, he asks his own questions as well.
The Chief Justice presides over the court's discussions of cases, and the court goes around
the room with the Chief Justice speaking first when they discuss cases.
If the Chief Justice is in the majority, he, by custom, has the authority to assign the
court's opinion to one of the other Justices in the majority or to keep that opinion himself
if he so chooses.
If the Chief Justice is in dissent, he does not have that authority.
It goes to the next most senior Justice.
But because the majority of the court's cases are decided, uh, either unanimously or by
substantial margins, the Chief Justice more often than not is the one who decides who
gets to write the opinion for the court.
And that is a substantial way in which the Chief Justice influences the direction of the law.
The Chief Justice does not control which cases the court hears.
Uh, that's up to all of the Justices, and it takes four votes, uh, out of the nine Justices
in order to grant review.
And even if the Chief Justice disagrees with the other Justices, they can override him
and hear a case.
The Chief Justice largely has the same responsibility as other members of the court, but the Chief
Justice does have a variety of additional, uh, responsibilities, both substantive and
ceremonial.
Perhaps the most interesting is that the Chief Justice is, by statute, the chancellor of
the Smithsonian Institution, and so the Chief Justice is actually in charge of the Smithsonian.
The Chief Justice has a variety of subsidiary responsibilities, such as presiding over the
various committees of the federal courts, working on the federal rules that govern court
proceedings and the like.
I think that the Chief Justice is not just the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice's formal title is Chief Justice of the United States, and I think
that that reflects the fact that the Chief Justice really is the most senior judicial
figure in the judicial system.