There are nine. There were seven seats. Four showed. Why? Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan, Kavanaugh and Barrett were present for the State of the Union address. As tradition dictates, they sat there stoic, hands folded in their laps, faces frozen, showing no reaction to the one hour and 47 minute speech. There was no reason for the four to be there.

Now would be a good time to put an end to the charade that the annual State of the Union address is a solemn occasion of civic ceremony. Although there have been moments in which the speech has seemed to serve such a function, it has always been primarily a vehicle of presidential and partisan boosterism.

Members of Congress and the Supreme Court have long been dragooned into playing along with the ruse. They should not continue to do so. They should stay home and let the president deliver his speech to a half-empty room of his most partisan supporters.

This was true well before Trump was elected president, but has become more flagrant as he’s forsaken any pretense of the address serving any function other than political self-promotion. Whether you loved Trump’s State of the Union or hated it, what it was not was fulfillment of its constitutional purpose.

The Constitution does not call for or require the State of the Union address. Rather, it specifies that the president will “from time to time give to Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The provision is now viewed as pointing to the “legislative role” of the president, but the concern of the constitutional drafters was to ensure that the legislature was adequately informed of new developments and the need for any federal policy response. The executive was expected to have information in its hands that Congress might want or need, and the constitutional directive to the president was to make sure that the information was passed on in a timely way to the branch that should deliberate on any policy response.

Originally a written message to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson turned it into a spectacle by addressing a joint session of Congress that couldn’t be ignored. It’s gone downhill ever since.

Famously, the justices found themselves in an awkward position at the 2010 State of the Union address delivered by President Barack Obama. Obama used the occasion to directly criticize the assembled members of the court for their recent decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. Cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito mouthing “not true” as the president characterized the case.

Afterward, CJ Roberts expressed his recognition that it put the justices in an awkward situation.

Chief Justice John Roberts later complained to a law school class.

The image of having the members of one branch of government [the Congress] standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering, while the court, according to the requirements of protocol, has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling. … To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there.

Beyond there being no good reason for the justices to be present for a “political pep rally,” it calls the propriety of their appearance into question. While Trump moderated his outrageous attack on the Court for its decision in Learning Resources holding his IEEPA tariffs unlawful, calling the justices “fools and lapdogs” and subject to foreign influences to issue an “anti-American” decision, he nonetheless characterized the decision as “unfortunate” and “disappointing.”

What were the justices supposed to do upon being “chastised” by the president, proclaiming his power to do as he pleases regardless of the Court and without need for authority from Congress? The Republican sycophants stood and cheered as the justices sat there, lacking any mechanism to explain that their job isn’t to help or hurt the president’s politics, but to administer law.

Who knows what Trump might choose to say in this State of the Union address, just days removed from this signature loss in the Supreme Court and with a long track record of losses in the lower courts. Will the justices be required to “sit there expressionless” as the president’s “cheering and hollering” supporters surround them and the president himself looks down on them and calls them fools and perhaps announces his own court-packing plan?

It could have turned out as badly as Keith Whittington speculated. Indeed, it would have surprised exactly no one if Trump had launched into a diatribe against the Court in general and the disloyal justices in particular. Apparently, cooler heads convinced Trump not to give in to his worst impulses, as he did on social media and in his unscripted reaction after the decision, and not call for the congressional Republicans to beat the justices to a pulp on the floor of the house for ruining Trump’s brilliant economic plan where foreign countries will pay so much in tariffs that we will no longer need an income tax. Quite the contrast from the year before, when Trump was overheard telling CJ Roberts that he won’t forget his loyalty in absolving Trump from his criminal conduct in office.

The tradition now is that the President is invited to deliver his State of the Union to a joint session of Congress. There was a reason why two of the three branches on government were included in the constitutional requirement, but the third was not. As Trump’s attacks and claims of power created an untenable situation for the justices, whose decisions should be based solely on the record before them and the arguments proffered, their presence was not merely unnecessary, but in conflict with their role as arbiters of the Constitution, even if that concept eludes Trump.

It’s time to end the tradition of justices appearing at a political rally, just as they have no business going to any other political rally no matter where it’s held or for what purpose. The justices should stick to justice, regardless of whether the President likes it or not.