berg80
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- Oct 28, 2017
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It’s said with some frequency that Chief Justice Roberts, outflanked by five activist justices to his right, has “lost the court.” While that was painfully obvious in the Dobbs case two years ago, when the Alito-led majority ignored his call for restraint and barreled through to a total erasure of the constitutional right to abortion, it’s an imprecise assessment.
Approaching his 19th anniversary on the court, the chief justice surely takes satisfaction in having accomplished central elements of his own agenda. His name is on majority opinions that have curbed affirmative action, struck at the heart of the Voting Rights Act and empowered religious conservatives, all with the support of his conservative colleagues and over vigorous dissenting opinions by the liberal justices.
What he has “lost,” rather, isn’t control of the court’s judicial output, but of something less tangible but no less important: its ability to assure the public that it is functioning as a court where all parties get a fair hearing and where individual justices aren’t beholden elsewhere, either financially or politically. In the current toxic atmosphere, that’s a heavy lift, dependent on skills other than those that made John Roberts, once among the star Supreme Court lawyers of his generation, a contender for the job President George W. Bush nominated him for in September 2005.
Persuading a majority of the court to rule for one’s client is simple compared with persuading a fellow Supreme Court justice to withdraw from a case in which the public has reason to suppose partiality.
www.nytimes.com
www.takebackthecourt.today
Perhaps when the most recent conservative supremes were testifying during their confirmation hearings John gave them some advice on how to lie about their positions on Roe. He having mastered the art of disingenuously saying what he needed to say to get confirmed 20 years ago.
I think Roberts will be disappointed when the history of his leadership of the Court is written. Not only because of the record reflecting he presided over such a nakedly partisan Court but because of his deception in getting confirmed in the first place.
Approaching his 19th anniversary on the court, the chief justice surely takes satisfaction in having accomplished central elements of his own agenda. His name is on majority opinions that have curbed affirmative action, struck at the heart of the Voting Rights Act and empowered religious conservatives, all with the support of his conservative colleagues and over vigorous dissenting opinions by the liberal justices.
What he has “lost,” rather, isn’t control of the court’s judicial output, but of something less tangible but no less important: its ability to assure the public that it is functioning as a court where all parties get a fair hearing and where individual justices aren’t beholden elsewhere, either financially or politically. In the current toxic atmosphere, that’s a heavy lift, dependent on skills other than those that made John Roberts, once among the star Supreme Court lawyers of his generation, a contender for the job President George W. Bush nominated him for in September 2005.
Persuading a majority of the court to rule for one’s client is simple compared with persuading a fellow Supreme Court justice to withdraw from a case in which the public has reason to suppose partiality.
Opinion | How John Roberts Lost His Court
New challenges to the Supreme Court’s image of probity and detachment seem to keep coming.
Executive Summary
- During his 2005 confirmation hearings, John Roberts emphasized his respect for Supreme Court precedent, affirmed that flaws in a precedent are “not enough...to justify revisiting it,” and underscored “the values of respect for precedent, evenhandedness, predictability, stability.”
- Chief Justice Roberts’s frequent votes to overturn precedent, however, are wholly inconsistent with his testimony at his confirmation hearing that he would respect past Supreme Court rulings.
- During his During his 14 years as Chief Justice, Roberts presided over 21 precedent-overturning cases and voted to overturn precedent in 17 of them (81%), making him the second-most frequent member of the majority in precedent-overturning cases. Only Justice Thomas has been a more frequent member of the majority in such cases (90%).
- Nor is Chief Justice Roberts’s voting record in precedent-overturning cases ideologically balanced. Quite to the contrary, his track record in such cases is among the most partisan of any Supreme Court Justice in the modern era.
Chief Justice Roberts Almost Always Votes to Overturn Precedent — Take Back the Court Action Fund
Chief Justice Roberts’s frequent votes to overturn precedent, however, are wholly inconsistent with his testimony at his confirmation hearing that he would respect past Supreme Court rulings.
www.takebackthecourt.today
Perhaps when the most recent conservative supremes were testifying during their confirmation hearings John gave them some advice on how to lie about their positions on Roe. He having mastered the art of disingenuously saying what he needed to say to get confirmed 20 years ago.
I think Roberts will be disappointed when the history of his leadership of the Court is written. Not only because of the record reflecting he presided over such a nakedly partisan Court but because of his deception in getting confirmed in the first place.
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