Roberts proved to be just another Republican crook ready to steal rights from people.
10
Why does the NY Times continually publish
OP-EDs that are screeds ?
Roe vs Wade is not effectively dead in much of the country.
It is being challenged and, rightly so, because it was a
flawed decision based upon nothing in the Constitution,
abortion should have been left for each State to decide as the 10th Amendment provides for.
I disagree with many of the decision by the Robert's Court
and wonder why a Constitutional Amendment has not been
passed to undue Citizen's United.
[For all screaming that Trump must be impeached for the phone call with the President of the Ukraine, the real damage done daily and massively to this country is Corporate control over the Congress.]
Nominating and placing more Judges on the Supreme Court or Federal Courts just means each party will nominate more and more and place more and more whenever they control the Senate and the House. Perhaps a better solution is to allow the House the right to vote on Federal and Supreme Court Justices and to limit their term of office to 12 years.
2
Pete Buttigieg has the one sane idea out there to rescue the SCOTUS: Increase it to 15 seats, five each appointed by Democrats and Republicans, with the last five to be appointed by unanimous agreement of the first ten. To gain a unanimous vote, those five would have to be reasonable, well-regarded, without a history of partisanship. To be able to work together, the parties' choices would also have to be less radical or there would be no hope of seating the final five.
12
Here is a simple rule for interpreting this op ed. If you want to politicize the court, first announce that the other side has politicized the court. That is Belkin and McElwee are up to.
Remember that the charges they make against Roberts are almost verbatim the charges that liberal activists used to make against the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Well, here is a higher authority on the subject of Scalia's jurisprudence. Shortly after his death, Justice Elena Kagan asked "In reading a statute, does anyone now decline to focus first on its text and context?" "When addressing constitutional meaning, does anyone ignore the founders' commitments?" Does anyone question the need to prevent judges from acting on their personal policy preferences? "If the answer is 'no' — and the answer is no, or mostly no — Justice Scalia deserves much of the credit."
Still unpersuaded? Then consider the view of legal luminary Cass Sunstein: "Many progressives understand Scalia, and other conservative judges, in crassly political terms -- as opponents of affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and campaign finance legislation."
But "Scalia’s plea for adherence to the public meaning of legal texts, and to the original understanding of the Constitution, derive from his commitment to rule-bound law. Even if you are unconvinced by Scalia’s arguments, they will get under your skin -- and you are likely to agree on the importance of finding ways to accommodate his concerns."
5
I am pro-choice.
But, I cannot find anything in the U.S. Constitution that talks about it.
Sure, if someone is pro-choice, it's great to have the U.S. Supreme Court say it is a constitutional right.
But what if someday a Supreme Court composed of other judges says that pro-life is a Constitutional right?
Better, I think, to leave the question of abortion to state legislatures.
Some state legislatures will legislate pro-choice.
And some states will legislate pro-life.
2
Message to Progressives.
The President's right to appoint judges,
including judges for the Supreme Court,
is subject to the right of the Senate to "advise and consent"
If a President is smart,
he/she ought to get the advice of the Senate
before making a nomination.
If the President simply presents the Senate with a nomination
-- without seeking advice beforehand --
then the President -- and his supporters --
should not be surprised when the Senate
simply refuses even to consider consenting to the nomination.
If the majority in the Senate is in the other political party,
then the President will need to talk to the majority.
No use simply getting the advice of Senators in his own party
who are in the minority.
Nice try. When Barack Obama ASKED Senator Charles Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee what kind of judge he could nominate and expect bipartisan support for, he answered Merrick Garland, the well-respected Chief Judge of the DC Circuit, one of the most influential appeals courts in the nation.
A few months later, Judge Scalia died unexpectedly. Who did Obama nominate? Why Judge Garland, as it happens.
The prevaricating Republican-controlled Senate refused their Constitutionally mandated role and never took up the nomination.
But then again, facts never seemed to get in the way of a good Republican yarn, did they?
14
@Max
Strong as the conservative credentials of Senator Grassley might be, and even as the majority GOP Chairman of the Judiciary Committee,
I think "advice" from the Senate requires,
at least in the case of nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court,
"advice" from more than a single Senator.
Composition of the U.S. Supreme Court requires more than discussions within the cozy confines of "Big Four" Leaders, or Committees.
What does Senator Grassley say about that discussion with President Obama?
Expand the courts, including at the next couple of levels down or better yet also have term limits and a retirement age. What is so sacrosanct about lifetime appointments in the Federal Court system? Every other job has a retirement date.
There are enough smart judges who can step in and do a creditable job.
9
It has always been a mystery to me how a person working under term limits (POTUS) has the power to appoint people to the Supreme Court for LIFE! It makes no sense. It invites extreme partisanship for potentially generations, especially under an unscrupulous president as we currently have to suffer. The GOP is laying the groundwork for an endless Republican led nation, no matter what the people want. It’s sickening. Term limits for all government officials are the answer. It takes away the paralysis of these ‘chosen ones’ to work only for themselves and to keep their cushy jobs. That was not what the founding fathers wanted.
9
Stop calling them "conservative" . Conservatives wouldn't overturn both precedent and statutory law as often as these reactionaries have. Why not use a neutral, factual term like "Republican-appointed"? As for the Court's legitimacy, that went out the window 19 years ago when five Republican justices ignored 400 years of well-settled law of injunctions, and the standard remedy for equal protection violations ( remand to state court) in order to install GW Bush in the White House. We definitely need to rebalance the court in light of the Merrick Garland fiasco.
13
I don’t know how anyone who is not a dyed in the wool Republican can remotely imagine that the Supreme Court is supremely partisan. After all, on almost any issue there is no question in advance, who will vote which way, whatever the merits of the case.
No one truly believes that racism is over in the US, but Roberts essentially argued that racism was a relic of the past in the Shelby County ruling. This may be the highest court in the land, but a partisan court is not a court of justice, a biased referee calling the nation’s political game.
8
@Jack Shultz
So what is the role of the Supreme Court in Canada,
vis-a-vis the Parliament,
and vis-a-vis the various Provinces?
And how are judges for the Supreme Court there chosen?
And what is their term of office?
Weeping (figuratively) when you haven't got the Supreme Court you desire is common. Often a president is the lead mourner.
1
The first Monday in October means it's time to trash the Supreme Court.
When did truth and reality become trashing, a version of fake news?
4
Most people, including the authors, simply root for the Court to be a supra-legislative body that will produce desired political results. If it acts as such, it has no legitimacy in a republican democracy and, more to the practical point, it then has the power to reverse political policies you approve of that were enacted by a Congress or an Administration you favor.
All this article fundamentally demonstrates is that in these polarized, non-communal times, everything becomes a Rorschach blot. We tend to see in everything that which we wish were the case or fear is or will become the case.The authors (as do most people) simply do not understand the judicial review function of the Supreme Court and the severe constraints it operates under to make legitimate in a democracy the power of an appointed body to negate the "will of the people" as expressed through their elected representatives.
Unfortunately, civics is no longer a required subject in most high schools. Also, it appears that many pundits busily pontificating on the Supreme Court never took a university course in Constitutional Law.
7
Count on predictable 5-4 outcomes on every one of these hot button issues.
For all the talk of the Federalist Society legal-community-fringe SCOTUS majority's "judicial philosophy," its "jurisprudence" is explicable in the very simplest terms: it is the result that counts. The majority justices, including Roberts, are originalists when they need to be, textualists when they need to be, neither when they need to be, deferential of legislatures when they need to be, dismissive of legislatures when they need to be, abstentionist when they need to be, preemptive when they need to be, and whatever else they need to be.
The one and only intellectually-valid way to summarize their "jurisprudence" is "Republicans win." Seriously. That's it. Nothing more. You know what the Republicans want here. So, done deal.
And it isn't as though we weren't warned. The one campaign promise Comrade Trump kept was to appoint Federalist Society outliers to the bench.
With Gorsuch and that deranged alcoholic appointed to augment the reliably-partisan Roberts, Thomas, and Alito, and with Garland nowhere in sight, the Comrade indeed has ensured that his SCOTUS, led by the reliable Roberts, will rule for Republicans for generations to come.
8
Roberts lied while looking angelically skyward at his hearing. Blue eyed arbiter of truth. I don’t think so. It appears Americans will never get the hook out of their
The philosophy of this court is: money talks, But God made me do it!
9
Most of us were never fooled.
8
Do Justices have any rules regarding how much they get paid for speeches or what they can get as gifts. Scalia died on a millionaires ranch in the middle of a luxury hunting trip. How many other justices get two weeks in the Caymans for speaking at a lawyers "conference". Do they have to file any public records regarding conflict of interest. I can't remember when a Justice recused themselves.
5
There is no current tribe of Republicans. What once was has been destroyed. Those who, at one time, called themselves Republican have allowed their minds upon to become contaminated with impious, unscrupulous beliefs that have morphed into inhumane, vicious, beastly, misconduct and no longer rate the once dignified Republican distinction and have become groupies. They have given up individual intelligent awareness. May the soon grasp that to submit to mental bondage is, beyond suicide, the worst thing a person can do to themself!
3
Will these decisions be delivered before the 2020 elections?
1
Yes. Any decisions during the current Court year must be handed down by June 30, right in the middle of the election cycle.
3
One thing for sure.
Judges should not be selected by supposed "experts"
such as law professors
or bar association poohbahs.
Nor by supposed "non-partisan" groups
Best is for the U.S. Senate to involve itself
actively in its Constitutional role for "advice and consent" -
and that includes the absolute right to withhold its consent.
Also,
We need term limits for judges --
say, 15 years, or maybe max 20 years.
That is plenty.
With no re-appointment to the Supreme Court.
15 years -- or maybe 20 years max.
Time to chuck the nonsense about dozens of years of "experience" providing supposedly "invaluable" time to "grow".
5
Problem is , the liberals feel very happy if they get one decision in their favor out of many that Justice Robert delivers. One bone thrown to them is enough to feel good about Justice Roberts.
2
Chief Justice Roberts is a conservative judge, elevated to the position by a conservative president, so why is any of this a surprise?
If liberals should be so scared, maybe they shouldn't nominate a terrible candidate for the presidency and maybe win the election...
1
She really, really needed to win!
I dreamt once that the legal system including SCOTUS was replaced by an ethical AI algorithm based on the writings of Spinoza.
I woke up and when I realized I had dreamt the whole thing, I was very sad.
3
Not a bad job. Life time appointment. Three months off in the summer. No boss. Only responsible to self. Who would of thunk?
3
@Matt Connolly
All of them --
Left, Right, Center,
Liberal/Progressive, Conservative, Moderate,
Dem, Rebub, Independent.
all alike.
Solution ---
Term limits.
15 years is plenty.
In the case of Supreme Courtm
No reappointment.
7
Anyone who believes that Supreme Court or other federal appeals court judges are unbiased and non-partisan is a fool. The vast majority of those judges decide cases on the basis of their ideological perspective, which tends to match their political party's platform.
The Supreme Court is not becoming a tool of the GOP. It already is one.
3
@CastleMan
Until recently,
a tool of the Dems and the Left.
1
Bias comes in sets Mr. Belkin and McElwee. The bias on the Left is etched in intransigence with Bader-Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor, never straying from the leftist agenda. With bias as sharply delineated as the lines on Ruth Bader-Ginsburg face, to voice displeasure in this ruse of Robert’s bias is to be completely disingenuous and attempt to destroy a concept of impartiality providing any credibility to the third branch of the US Government. Since Bill Clinton, the Supreme Court has devolved into juris prudence with a pronounced political slant. Democrats seek no wisdom from the Supreme Court, merely acquiescence and accord.
Roberts was responsible for the Obama Care travesty, cementing his legacy of bending law to satisfy a Party in power. The Left is obviously never satisfied.
6
I am shocked. Even as I have maintained that Justice has removed her blindfold and has her thumb on the scale I am shocked that the NYT has determined that this is indeed the truth.
I have long maintained if you are looking for an honest lawyer the back of your Uber ride may be where to begin.
It was only 2400 years ago that Diogenes told us that you can find honest men living in barrels, eating table scraps and being naked to the world. They say Diogenes was the greatest fool that ever lived and his wit would let you laugh through all the pain. Who better to see us through all the cynicism than Diogenes who spoke to Alexander the Great as we would all like to be spoken to. The lies are engendering far too much pain.
The only thing that might save America is respect for the truth.
4
Don't worry. We're not fooled.
3
There's nothing subtle about the SCOTUS's shift to the right.
Roberts lies like an amateur when he claims that partisanship has not influenced court decisions.
That partisanship is as naked as Trump's lies. Robert's lie shows the contempt in which he holds the people, naively thinking that we are all as stupid as the conservative/reactionary base.
There used to be reason to respect the experience, learning, and reasoning of the justices.
Not so with this current crop of rightwing hacks. They're the sort that gives rise to the characterization of lawyers as shysters.
4
This is an astute analysis. Roberts is no moderate despite his reputation. In my opinion he is a fairly extreme conservative who will use his position to
promote the Republican agenda on most issues like abortion, campaign finance laws, voter suppression,
organized labor rights, environmental law, gay rights and marriage equality, the separation of church and state, and executive and Presidential power.
He will try to use his judicial power to obstruct the progressive agenda desired by most Americans.
The Democrats when they obtain political power must find ways to counter the Republican strategy of packing the courts with very partisan judges.
They must consider enlarging the court in light of the Republican’s unprecedented treatment of Justice Garland and Trump’s likely illegitimate election.
3
I fail to see which SCOTUS decisions of late have impacted me or anyone, directly on the issues that matter. The Constitution, as written is intact. The Bill of Rights, as written, are in intact. The people are free to assemble and protest, the press is free to criticize etc. No one's liberties have been curtailed and yet the hysteria such as this screed continues.
2
So because you don’t personally know anybody who has been affected by recent SC decisions, you think everything is peachy? Does Citizens United ring a bell? Or the concerted efforts of red state judges and governors to overturn Roe v. Wade? Our country and its freedom is under attack from the inside. One, seemingly minor, decision at a time. Now is the time to speak up to try to stop this runaway ultra right train. Republicans are not going to be in power forever, but they are laying the groundwork right now to subvert the majority’s wishes for generations to come. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
6
Talk to a woman who needs an abortion in the south, Douglas. Talk to a candidate who’s run since Citizens United. Talk to someone for whom gerrymandering has stolen their Representative. Or someone who’s been purged from the voter rolls because of a typo - or now just for living on a reservation. Open your eyes, man.
They set themselves up for the inevitable revenge because it was worth it to them, for all the devilry they could do to this country with that majority. We need to go through the rolls and impeach as many of them as possible, for the slightest infraction. And hope as the cases pile up that a good number just resign rather than face the ordeal and ruin to their reputation. And then have a constitutional convention to solve these issues in a healthy and democratically chosen way. But something has to be done about this illegitimate majority - stolen just like the presidency was.
5
Voting Rights Act gutted by Roberts who said in his opinion something like we no longer needed protections for minority voters because those problems were from another era.
Two seconds after the decision the same states that were under monitoring provisions went right back to the voting suppression they had been pushing for decades.
Only now, no Voting Rights Act.
Only in 2006, the act was re-affirmed by almost unanimous votes in the senate and house. And, that was still in partisan times.
4
The GOP has packed the Courts with young hard-core ideological Liberatrians.
The minimal action needed for rebalance is for Congress to expand SCOTUS to 11 Justices if a Democrat wins the Presidency. This would offset the GOP’s brazen theft of the Garland seat
3
@Pat Choate
How do conservatives make up for the destruction by Democrats of Robert Bork?
1
It is an irony that Trump often talks about deep state despite the fact that he is is a product of the machine. He creates an illusion that a honest person like him is constantly harassed by deep state. Well the truth is contrary. Just review Trump’s actions over the past 31 months- he fulfilled every wish of the deep state to destroy the basic foundation of our nation. Republicans know very well that they cannot win any legitimate election. For the same, they have crafted gerrymandering, voter suppression, fake information propaganda via Fox, Britbert, Facebook and others. Federal courts are the last protection for us to receive justice. Deep State with the help from their stooge in the White House is filling them with morally bankrupt unqualified extremists to choke off any action by the legislators to help us the people. This is a preemptive strike to destroy our democracy. The five justices in the Supreme Court were pushed by the deep state and they are sitting in the chair to help their paymasters. They are not driven by law or ethics. It is a shame and disgrace to see how our great nation is transforming into an authoritarian state. People wake up!
6
This! This is what is wrong with the country! This is why GOP has survived
Will Roberts be able to rise above his past conservative bias to fairly preside over an impeachment trial where 20 senate republicans will have to decide if the president is above the law or will this president be an exception due to his fanatical base and popularity among "Evangelicals."
5
Anybody holding the belief the SCOTUS is only recently partisan is entirely wrong. SCOTUS has always been so.
Please read UCLA law professor Adam Winkler's book entitled: We the corporations. This is a well documented history of SCOTUS and will disabuse the ration and ignorant of the silly belief about an impartial SCOTUS.
"But none of this will matter unless Democrats acknowledge that the chief justice is the extreme, right-wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority, which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party."
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you once again for acknowledging what I've been thinking and saying to people ever since the Roberts Court began.
Thank you.
6
SCOTUS partisanship to a ‘progressive’ clearly means following the Constitution and not the ‘progressive’ agenda.
And now ‘progressives’ plan to stack the court to get the decisions they want.
Liberty is imperiled by the Left.
3
@EGD
Would-be dictators always claim that their concern is for "liberty."
The Republicans have stacked the court to get their agenda. They refused to vote on Merrick Garland, and forced through two extreme rightwing justices.
The liberal agenda is the agenda of the founders and the Constitution.
3
I agree that the Supreme Court should be enlarged. I forsee a great deal of damage to our citizens if we do not. Consider the hundreds of judicial appointments made by trump and whisked through the Senate by Moscow Mitch, who refused President Obama's candidate Merrick Garland. In order for the less conservative citizens of our once-great country to have a voice, the make-up of the court must change.
6
You will know the Supreme Court's legitimacy has run out when Saturday Night Live starts making fun of them. Oh, wait, they already have -- Matt Damon as Bret "I Like Beer!" Kavanaugh was priceless.
5
Please stop calling the right wing radicals conservatives, conservative and liberal might be ends of a continuum, but the five are far out there. Nothing “conservative” about ruling against stare decisis on a regular basis. An old guideline for judges in Sweden in the 1600’s said what is not fair and just cannot be the law either. Time to find models for redesigning the SCOTUS. Just restricting its ruling to federal issues related to the constitution. Leave the rest to the states to judge.
2
Perhaps the reason that the Supreme Court feels like an extension of the Republican Party to progressives is that the Republican Party is the party of law and the constitution while progressives just want what they want without regard to either.
Someone has to be the parent.
2
@KBronson
Since the adoption of the Constitution, virtually all of its provisions have been expanded to grant greater liberties to the people.
Conservatives want to pretend none of that was legitimate, and want to use the Constitution as a club to beat back those liberties.
1
@KBronson
Yeah, sure. Trump represents the party of law and the constitution. He's the parent.
1
@Cornflower Rhys
Trump is a disease that Republicans caught from Democrats.
1
How ironic that the creep towards a completely conservative court started 40 years ago, been made possible by 1) Democrats following along without a commitment to a markedly alternative vision despite their domestic policies being supported by large majorities, and 2) Roe v. Wade, which has driven enough single-issue evangelical voters to consistently come out to the polls and swing elections to Republicans as they dismantle civil, voter, and labor rights and environmental and election financing laws. The final pieces required to complete the conservative movement are now in place. It will be a complete surprise if Roe survives more than 5 years. Next on the conservative agenda: crippling all government-financed healthcare programs and privatizing Social Security. Will they be successful?
3
@Christopher Killing of the innocent will eventually be seen as the barbarism it is. Entitlements will never die.
1
It’s amazing that people can still be fooled. I have no illusions about the court. We should treat it like the body it is - another political institution.
The conservatives on the court are absolute partisan hacks. Bush v Gore. Citizens. Gerrymandering. Voting rights. Heller. Trumps immigration and wall funding raids. Etc etc.
Even things like the ACA should have been at least 7-2 decisions.
5
"Perhaps the most chilling line in Kavanaugh's speech was, 'what goes around, comes around.' He did not say it with any evident sadness, nor did he renounce it as a value," Jonathan Chait wrote in New York magazine. "Here was a man apparently threatening revenge on his political enemies, and asking for a lifetime appointment with supreme power of judicial review with which to do it." (Politifact, 4Oct2018) Add in Mr. McConnell's abuse of power involving this appointment, and the non-partisanship of the Supreme Court is out the window for the lifetime terms of Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Gorsuch.
9
@Steve Kennedy: Trump pulled Kavanaugh out from under Garland and installed him above to compound the insult. The US takes more crap from Trump than I ever imagined possible.
4
There is also partisanship on the left of the Supreme Court. They have been influential in deciding cases for a long time but few progressives have paid much attention to their left wing shift. They have taken it for granted.
The four justices who have voted cases with a liberal bent are Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sosomayer. Why is there so little mention of this?
The tide is slowing turning. It is the conservatives time to have their say. The country was leaning too far left and now there will be some balance. This is good for the country and it is the conservatives who are celebrating.
3
@KMW There may be liberal or conservative decisions, but when a decision specifically relates to electoral politics, as when the court blocked Florida's electoral recount, and appointed George W Bush as president, you have to call that partisan, rather than conservative.
That said, you are right, there was a time when it was the right-wingers who were mad at the court for its support of civil rights and other liberal causes. "Impeach Earl Warren!" and so on. I guess anyone who wants to return to the pre-civil-rights days will be happy with the prospect of even more right-wing judges...
7
@KMW
The further to the right the country moves, the worse it is for the living standards of the working class.
That trend is incontrovertible. And yes, now the corporate oligarchs are having their say and are firmly in control.
Who can blame the rich conservatives for celebrating?
@KMW: Fact-based decisions are not controversial. Dyslexics confuse left and right. The US is massively dyslexic.
1
There is always the hope he will actually see people as if they were corporations.
9
@Robert Roth: We can hope that Roberts sees Congress and Senate as a composite board of directors empowered to fire an insubordinate CEO.
6
@Steve Bolger
That too
3
Most people, including the authors, simply root for the Court to be a supra-legislative body that will produce desired political results. If it acts as such, it has no legitimacy in a republican democracy and, more to the practical point, it then has the power to reverse political policies you approve of that were enacted by a Congress or an Administration you favor.
All this article fundamentally demonstrates is that in these polarized, non-communal times, everything becomes a Rorschach blot. We tend to see in everything that which we wish were the case or fear is or will become the case.The authors (as do most people) simply do not understand the judicial review function of the Supreme Court and the severe constraints it operates under to make legitimate in a democracy the power of an appointed body to negate the "will of the people" as expressed through their elected representatives.
Unfortunately, civics is no longer a required subject in most high schools. Also, it appears that many pundits busily pontificating on the Supreme Court never took a university course in Constitutional Law.
4
@Steve Fankuchen: "Constitutional review" by the Supreme Court seeks to establish where the authority to enact a particular piece of legislation comes from. My favorite example of this was the Court's vacation of the "Gun Free School Zones Act". The court found this legislation unconstitutional because Congress had based its authority to enact the law on the commerce clause that gives Congress sweeping powers to bar social and economic competition between states. The Congress should have reconfigured this law under its Article I Section 8 powers to govern how states regulate militias and enacted it again.
3
@Steve Fankuchen
But, but ...if the decision is “extreme”, isn’t it illegitimate no matter how logical, how grounded in legal history and precedent. Surely constitutional law and the will of the people pale in importance to the objective determination by legal journalists and academics that a finding is irrefutably “extreme” by their standards.
They are the final arbiters of “extreme” and are so qualified by their internal agreement on that matter. If you don’t agree with them on that matter, you and any differing views that you might entertain are suspect of being “right-wing.”
@Steve Fankuchen
You ignore the fact that people have opinions, just as do Supreme Court justices and the attorneys who argue before them.
Of course we all want legal opinions to go along with what we prefer. To want otherwise is impossible.
Half the Supreme Court is run by the same clique of billionaires behind Mitch McConnell and Justice Kavanaugh. (The 1/2 not among the 4 1/2 ideologues is Roberts on an off day).
1
Drastic situations call for drastic measures. I say go the way of FDR, but of course, not until there is a Democrat president. Which is the problem
4
We erroneously equate intellectual intelligence with wisdom. Yes, Roberts was so smart that he skipped his freshman year in college and later was made editor of the Harvard Law Review. But unfortunately he was not able to foresee the dangers to our country by finding for Citizens United and later, cases like Mc Cutcheoon V FEC, that gave further power to corporations and big money. The reason we have a country that has not been as divided since the Civil War is in large part the fault of Roberts and his four republican cronies. Justice Stevens was the wise one in that context when he argued that "the unique qualities of corporations and other artificial legal entities made them dangerous to democratic elections. These legal entities, he argued, have perpetual life, the ability to amass large sums of money, limited liability, no ability to vote, no morality, no purpose outside profit-making, and no loyalty. Therefore, he argued, the courts should permit legislatures to regulate corporate participation in the political process." It is emotional intelligence that should be the prerequisite to Judgeship. Emotional intelligence would have informed Justice Roberts that Citizens United would (and may yet) lead us to a place akin to Nazi Germany, whose supreme court was also made up of very smart men.
5
The only real answer is term limits for the Supreme Court and Congress. It works for the presidency so.......
2
@thezaz I can see term limits for the Supreme Court, if they are very long: maybe mandatory retirement at 85. That would give everybody time to plan. But realistically, they wouldn't make much difference.
The reason to have term limits for the president but not congress is that the president is one person wielding a huge amount of power: if one were allowed to continue in office indefinitely, he (or she) could become in effect a dictator. It might make sense to apply the same logic to the role of Speaker of the House or Majority Leader of the Senate: maybe no one person should be allowed to remain in those positions for more than a couple of terms. But no ordinary legislator has that kind of power, and to limit their terms would only shift power to the executive, and to the vast army of corporate lobbyists. Maybe we should have "term limits" for lobbyists...
Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham deserve credit for all but destroying the Judicial Branch of the United States of America.
The failure of McConnell to bring Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the floor wasn't just corrupt, is was downright filthy. That dirty maneuver will not be forgotten by court watchers in my lifetime. The sitting justices themselves should have shouted out in protest.
The Court can't be blamed for Trump's election, but two of the Court's justices are "fruit of the poisonous tree," having been nominated by an illegitimate president. And, Lindsay Graham's pathetic diatribe during the Kavanaugh hearing will never be forgotten, although Kavanaugh's own self-pitying meltdown probably eclipsed Graham's in melodrama and shock-value.
The perception that USSC Justices were rock-solid intellectuals and patriots is probably gone forever. The veneer has been scraped away, and as a lawyer of 31 years I just cringe at the thought of my misplaced respect during those years. It's one of the reasons I won't send my daughter to law school. The prestige, tradition and beauty of the legal profession is likely dead forever.
3
No the Constitution deserves all the credit for destroying SCOTUS and the office of POTUS.
Think about it and you will see that with a logical and contemporary constitution we would not have to go through any of this.
1
@LG Well, don't send her, but if she wants to go, it should be her decision, shouldn't it? I mean, tell her how you feel, by all means, but...
2
@LG: These people treated Judge Garland as a low grade hack operating at their own miserable level of grubsucking. If he was even asked, he wisely declined to be used in some kind of Trumpish coup like a recess appointment.
1
I agree the Supreme Court is just an extension of the Republican party. What the party couldn't change through the ballot box they decided to do by packing the court (Neil Gorsch). There are no fair and non partisan court opinions coming from this court.
Its time the Democratic party woke up and made the choice to play hardbal. Add more Justices to the Supreme court when they get chance. The other choice is to be ruled by a non elected group of men who can't be voted out of office and watch the country go down the toilet.
3
You can always predict in advance which way Justice Ginsburg will vote, but have we ever seen a NY Times opinion piece complaining about the “partisan” liberal justices?
6
@Anonymous
Say, I can, too. She always votes to "establish Justice" just like the Constitution says is her job.
@Anonymous
The other side is partisan. My side is right. Other people have opinions, while I have the truth. If their opinions differ very much from my truth, then they are “extreme” and probably evil, racist even.
2
@Anonymous
Liberalism is about what its name implies: extending liberal values to benefit the people. There is nothing there to complain about.
The opposite is corporatism, plutocracy, oligarchy, and dictatorship. Conservatives. The rightwing.
1
Protecting the vote of individuals is the area that Roberts has seemed most out of step, the most crosswise, with the sweep of the U.S. Constitution. Six of the most recent 13 amendments have enlarged the electorate or protected the right of individuals to vote. Yet Roberts provided the fifth vote in Citizens United and Shelby County.
Trump is presenting the Roberts Court with new opportunities to defend the Constitution. I remain hopeful the Court will get this right. Failures to do so would lead to eventual harsh reversals and cement a dismal legacy for the majority.
As President Lincoln wrote in his first inaugural address in reference to slavery: “if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
2
@John
Shelby County protected the right of the people of Shelby County to vote on their own local governance, to be their own rulers ( like most counties) without asking permission of the justice department in Washington.
@KBronson
Within a month of the Shelby County decision, the legislatures of both Texas and North Carolina poked the Supreme Court in the eye by pursuing multiple voter suppression actions of the type that the Court said in the decision were no longer a problem and thus pre-clearance through the U.S. Justice Department was no longer in order.
Those states and others that were subject to pre-clearance before Shelby County have since passed numerous measures to make voting more difficult, more expensive, etc. for many of their citizens.
If they can do that to some of us, they can do it to more or all of us, including you!
1
@John
Voter suppression is a myth — just a label that leftists throw at prudent efforts to keep clean elections restricted to legally qualified voters. If people aren’t willing to negotiate minor inconveniences to vote, then they are disqualifying themselves from this serious responsibility by not taking the privilege seriously. It is just democratic propaganda to excuse losing elections with uninspiring candidates with unpopular agendas.
1
This is what I've found as well. Roberts rarely bucks the trend, but the same was true of Kennedy. He was seen as a swing vote, but his actual voting record was solidly conservative. The public has a selective memory.
No, with the current composition, the SCOTUS is just the legal arm of the Republican Party, and it will be for another 35-50 years. All the battles over SCOTUS appointments are over for my lifetime.
1
to say roberts isn't political or partisan is a gross understatement. 4 hours ago the supreme threw out a challenge to the gop gerrymandering case in ohio reversing a lower courts' decision to realign the districts in a more neutral configuration. according to the supreme court, the federal court system has no business trying to make the democratic process more equal or fair and cannot interfere in state politics.
2
Expanding the court was a bad idea in 1937 and it is now. Democrats need to stop whining when they lose and trying to get the rules changed as a result of those losses. That includes the Electoral College.
The country doesn't need new rules, it needs new members of Congress. Ones that do their job.
2
@Lou Good: It is more lucrative for state legislatures to take bribes to enact laws written by ALEC. US states do not want a Congress that requires them to deliver equally protective laws.
1
@Lou Good Actually a good case can be made that the court should be expanded, for valid non-partisan reasons. There is nothing magical about the number 9, and the country is a lot bigger than when that number was chosen. (It's not in the Constitution.) Probably the smart way to increase the size to a more appropriate 15 or 21, would be to do it incrementally over a period long enough so no one president would get to appoint a decisive number. (Which is part of why it would be better to have more justices, to make the court less responsive to temporary shifts in political power.)
1
@Lou Good
The Supreme Court is busily reversing 150 years of liberal precedent.
The people cannot wait for the rightwing justices to die off. They need relief in their own lifetimes.
We ain't whining. We're gonna take back the government and continue the progress that was interrupted by 9/11 and its aftermath.
My concern is for confidence in the legal system -- if the courts, and SCOTUS in particular, make decision after decision that most Americans think are not representative of what the Constitution says, what are the options? I worry that a lot of states and localities will simply ignore them, and that way lies, what? Chaos? Secession?
1
@Joshua Hayes
"if the courts, and SCOTUS in particular, make decision after decision that most Americans think are not representative of what the Constitution says, what are the options?"
Who cares what most Americans think are not representative of what the Constitution say? They tend to know little or nothing as it pertains to interpreting the Constitution. I'd probably follow a collection of Constitutional scholars rather than the American public. Only function of the American public is to vote, something only 61% of the voting population does.
Roberts has his eye on the history books. So while he wants to BE partisan, he would prefer not to APPEAR partisan. This means that every now and then he will break ranks and join the opposition to form a majority for a moderate outcome.
The public image of an independent judiciary wisely floating above the political fray, dispassionately following the law wherever it leads, is central to the establishment claim to legitimacy and a myth that Roberts seeks to nurture and retain.
6
The "Roberts Court" is the most blatantly pro-corporate SCOTUS in our history (Well, since the 1930's, anyway).
FDR 'persuaded' the Court to moderate its' ruling by threatening to increase the number of justices.
I fully expect that the next Democrat in the White House will have to do the same.
4
The SC is the only reason I don’t vote for the GOP. I abhor socialism and despise the faux “liberal” agenda of the Warren/Sanders wing of the Democratic Party that will destroy the economy and create havoc in foreign affairs. However, as a true liberal and a woman, I cannot go along with curtailing the right to abortion, persecution of the LGBTQ community, and imposition of religious values on the largely secular population in the coastal states. All the cases described in this article involve the rights to personal autonomy and freedom of expression which I hold dear. I can only hope that Judge Roberts will understand that deciding in favor of individual freedom is the right thing to do, regardless of his own religious beliefs.
1
@Mor: Please don't allow abusers of language to misuse words to make people self-destructive. "Socialism" is only taxing the people what they can afford without hardship to pay for projects and services of general value to all of the public. All public sectors of mixed economies are ostensibly socialistic.
6
@Mor
Interesting take. If you are truly interested in reality, and have an open mind, try this for size: low taxes, low regulation stifle economic growth. Every decent society is a high tax, strong government society.
That is just history. Reality has a liberal bias.
3
@Mor
It's the greed of the corporate plutocracy that has been destroying the economy.
Socialism would restore control of the nation and the nation's wealth to the people.
I have always thought that Roe v.Wade was wrongly argued on the grounds of patient doctor privacy and should have been argued under the equal protection clause of the constitution. I hope it still can be because this would solve the problem of all the current chipping away restrictions states are trying to introduce.
2
@Rebecca Hogan: Legislation that prohibits abortion is justified with the claim that the human "soul" is an implant of God at the moment of fertilization. This is a faith-based belief that cannot be respected by treating it as a fact in legislation.
3
@Steve Bolger The trouble is, now they are making abortion impossible without prohibiting it, by imposing onerous regulations on clinics: and at some point they will probably try to prohibit it, without any claims about the soul, but with medical-sounding regulations referring to heartbeats or other detectable activities... or, they might come right out with their faith-based concept of the soul, who knows? But I suspect they will stick with more secular-sounding arguments.
2
I am no fan of Chief Justice Roberts' view of the law. I would choose differently. But to say that Chief Justice Roberts is "partisan" is wrong. Viewing most of the Justices through the lens of our current failing political system does an injustice to most of the justices . Our current failing political system is stagnant from an us v. them view of everything. If we do not pull out of it, the end of our democracy is inevitable. Supreme Court appointments have, for the most part, been the result of our political system before it went from feeling a little queasy to close to fatal. Many of the justices before Trump's appointees have been ideologically identifiable, but not politically "partisan" in the sense that term has any efficacy in describing our current political actors.
We have had "activist judges, with a legal-political agenda. Justice Scalia on the right and Justice Douglas on the left are two obvious examples. One might term them "partisan" because it describes their first instinct on seeing a case. That is different than viewing legal disputes from a particular perspective. Chief Justice Roberts approach to the law might not meet my fancy, but I don't think he decides cases based on the desires of the right side of our failing political system.
@SHG
Roberts' own voting record on the court contradicts your argument.
3
Gee, thanks for opening my eyes. You’re right, many of us don’t catch the small steps.
Once upon a time "God helps those who help themselves" was generally understood to mean "Quit praying, you're on your own."
Roberts has already butted heads with Trump in the past. It's because Roberts is conservative. Trump and his followers have nothing to do with conservatism. Trump is a Stalinist, and nothing scares him more than conservatism.
2
I'm not entirely certain Roberts is a true conservative. To the extent he is libertarian he is not conservative. Libertarians are inherently anti-conservative in the traditional Burkean conservative tradition.
Conservatives don't overturn precedent. That's what conservative means.
1
@Ryan
Roberts is not a true conservative. He is a paid conservative
This is crazy and is just a pre-cursor to packing the courts.
If the super progressive who post here and run the NYT think that the SC is now biased and beyond repair, just say that and do away with the court system entirely.
Packing the courts will mean that it will be the Democrats who will have eviscerated one leg of the US government system as once we pack the court, it will be forever rendered ineffectual.
2
@NYC Moderate
On the contrary, if will be far more effectual when decisions are not automatically decided by a single vote.
The Constitution does not specify the size of the court. There is nothing mystical or holy about nine justices.
2
There are six Catholics out the nine Supreme Court judges .
Let’s wait and see , no other choice .
2
@inter nos
And three Jews.
No Protestants at all
- neither "main-line"
nor evangelical.
1
I look forward to several Impeachments: Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh ...
2
@Kathryn Ryder Exactly...McConnell thinks he is so smart but once the financial collapse happens...the GOP will lose the senate wither 2020 or 2024 and then, guess what? We just change the rules, we tear down the wall, we impeach SCOTUS judges, we reinstate the SALT deduction and so on and so on.
1
Should we brace ourselves for courts and tribunals similar to the Spain of Francisco Franco or the Russia of Putin, or is our system robust as a Japanese koboshi doll designed so that its weight causes it to quickly return to an upright position?
@domplein2
Our system is fragile. Look how quickly the GOP throws out the Rule of Law.
1
Her is a good example: https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20140518/OPINION/140516500/2011/OPINION
Biases, whether explicit or implicit, impact the information judges hear and consider as well as how they interpret that information. John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, has said, “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” In the sense that judges and justices determine the outcome, Chief Justice Roberts is correct in his assessment. Regardless, a judge’s role typically involves far more subjectivity than does that of an umpire. And, the more subjectivity involved, the greater the potential for the influence of bias, which constrains the information actually heard and considered. This, in turn, leads to impaired critical thinking, assuming critical thinking is even occurring. It bears mentioning that while many different types of biases exist and may have different causes, the impact of bias is the same, regardless of type.
Myron Moskowitz, an appellate attorney in Northern California admitted to the State Bar of California in 1965, described that his many years in the field have caused him to realize the following:
"A judge is a judge. When a judge believes that a certain result is the fair one, he or she will often find a way to reach it…. [In order to obtain] some particular desired result, an appellate judge might bend the words of the statute a bit or reinterpret some dicta to justify that result."
2
@Mark Baer
The assessment is correct. They actions are not.
The Founding Fathers told us how to interpret the Constitution, "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice". Please give me the rationale that makes gerrymandering, regardless of source, "establish(ing) Justice." Tell me how states suppressing votes is "establish(ing) Justice". Tell me how the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment "insure(s) domestic Tranquility", "promotes the General Welfare". This liberal does not get it. The Founders also said they wanted the courts, the Congress and the POTUS to consider how their actions affected the society in the long run, "secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
The Constitution, unlike the GOP/Roberts view, is not to enrich the already rich. But I am sure they can interpret the Constitution to say just that, or, more likely, just ignore it.
This SCOTUS has the duty to protect the rich and powerful. End of story.
4
@gratis Exactly! And, thank you! That idea that all a judge is supposed to do is "call balls and strikes" should have disqualified Roberts when he first mentioned it.
There probably are cases where the judge just parses the grammar and vocabulary of the law correctly, but if that was what judging was mostly about, it would be a pretty low-level job. It's certainly not what we have a Supreme Court for.
We should never accept that a judge has no sense of fairness, or personal interpretations of what general welfare and public tranquility mean. And when we select our judges, we should select them on the basis of those interpretations. It seems that judges who pretend not to have any personal interpretations are actually trying to hide their views from the public.
2
@gratis I agree with you.
This article depresses me.
4
Conservatives nominated hard right conservatives to SCOTUS in the expectation that hard right justices would promote conservative prejudices. So far, so true.
History lesson: Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings on Judge Garland’s nomination in hopes of getting a hard right nominee from a republican president; he did, and the hard right nominee was promptly confirmed. Ditto for Kavanaugh, who is in the running for worst nominee ever: 2,400 law professors signed a letter asking the Senate to reject him. That’s unprecedented.
Now we are stuck with a rigged court. The reasonable expectation is that going forward, the conservative justices will do what their political biases predict they will do: promote ultra-conservative prejudices. Regardless of your political beliefs, you must agree that a rigged court is a serious problem because justice will not be served by such a court. Rigging the court with liberal extremists is not a solution; it’s the flip side of the same coin.
2
Thanks for zeroing in on these numbers, for those of us who have been unjustifiably harboring a soft spot for C.J. Roberts.
2
Something positive has already come from this session of the Court. The Court declined to hear the case surrounding the impeachment proceedings, led by an ultra-conservative faction of the West Virginia Legislature, attempting to unseat, by impeachment, the entire Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of a West Virginia. This is not to say this Court will give an unbiased ear to some of the other politically-charged cases that will actually be heard. But their unwillingness to hear the WV case is, at minimum, an expression that partisan actions, such as that in WV, may be without merit in the eyes of the law and constitutional government.
If he is partisan,
he is more center-partisan
than the more left partisan ones
(Sotomoyor, Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan)
and the more right partisan ones
(Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaught).
Not so say that center is automatically best.
But likewise, left is not automatically best,
and right is not automatically best.
Sometimes a "right-wing" decision is the right decision,
and sometimes a "left-wing" decision is the right decision.
In any case,
for all appointments,
it is correct and good for the U.S. Senate to take an active role.
It is dangerous to give too much "deference" to the President.
So, sharing power and responsibility between
the President and the U.S. Senate is the best.
Bu it is also always absolutely wrong to put control
in the hands of supposedly "non-partisan" commissions.
Academicians (e.g. law professors)
and lawyers (e.g. Bar associations)
and other supposed "experts"
often are every bit as "partisan"
as politicians.
Power should not be given to such supposedly "non-partisan"
people.
As for court expansion,
could be that 11 is better than 9.
But problem is,
how to do that.
Doing it all at once
would give one president too much influence.
But spreading it out over 2 presidential terms
would temporarily leave an even number --
an invitation to tie votes --
and tie votes are bad because it would give
too much influence to a hodge-podge of lower court decisions.
As for 13 or 15,
at some point, large numbers become unworkable.
1
@sam finn
Decisions by the left virtually always involve more liberties for the people.
Decisions by the right invariably take them away. Unless they lead to more power for religion over a secular government, or more guns to murder people.
2
@Jerry Engelbach Not so!!! The civil right to be armed is hated by those "on the left". Yet, in the 20th Century, "gun control" laws promoted eight genocides, in which some 50,000,000 - including millions of children - were murdered.
Germany enacted "gun control" on 12 April 1928, before the Nazis took power. The goal: to curb fights between Nazi Party and Communist Party thugs.
When the Nazis lawfully took power in 1933, they found in police stations, lists of firearm-owners. Plainly the Nazis did not allow those whom they hated - of whom Jews were only one group - to hold onto firearms.
Disarming Jews wasn't decisive: Jews were only one percent of Germans. The prompt disarming of the many other Germans, who hated the Nazis, quickly gave the Nazis an iron grip.
The Nazis were not then wildly popular. They won 43.9% of the vote in an election held on 5 March 1933, even with Nazi party thugs having terrorized other parties' candidates. Even so, the Nazis - short of a majority - had to form a coalition. It had a slim majority in the Reichstag (parliament).
By at once disarming their foes, the Nazis stifled any resistance. By 1938, Nazi foreign policy gains - e.g., the seizure of Austria - and a revived economy made the Nazis truly popular.
The Nazis murdered some 13,000,000 of whom some 6,000,000 were Jews (of whom 1,500,000 were children) and 750,000 Gypsies (Roma).
Many, dazzled by "gun control's" false promise of "safe streets", can't see these heaps of corpses.
President Obama had more than one legally defensible rationale for appointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after Moscow Mitch refused to take Garland’s nomination to the Senate for a vote.
Obama’s decision to “go high” and not fight back in this matter has done more damage to the country than all the good he accomplished over 8 years.
4
Do people understand least about this branch of government? If yes, what is the remedy? Ask Mr Roberts?
Expanding the court will achieve nothing. Sure, if a progressive president and senate come to power, they might be able to create a progressive majority. But the knife has two edges.
The problem is not in the size of the court, it is in the nature of an electorate that elects Trump, and in Senate rules that reward seniority with great power. Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, for example, are as repugnant as Trump, but given their seniority based power to deliver pork, their constituents would be foolish to replace them.
In an echo of the the 1950s red scare, propaganda "news" outlets and hate radio saturate suburban and rural Americans with the message that progressive/liberal politicians have and will continue to undermine their values and quality of life. Trump piggy backs on this distorted reactionary nonsense with his empty promise to make their America great again.
Until progressives/liberals learn how to appeal to the rest of America, the make up of the Supreme Court is the least of our problems.
3
"To determine whether an outcome was partisan, we assumed that if at least four liberal justices voted for a decision in a split ruling, then the outcome was consistent with Democratic Party values and goals."
By this metric, the Liberal Justices are 100% partisan. So if partisanship is bad, they are the worst.
Do the math, NYT.
2
@Chorizo Picante
Mr. Spicey Sausage, I hope the liberal justices are partisan.
Progressive values are those of the people.
History has a liberal bias.
1
Every American who stayed home on Election Day 2016 or voted third party because "both sides are equally bad" or "but her emails" bear no small part of the blame for the conservative poisoning of the courts from the Supreme on down and the consequences we will be facing for decades thanks to Trump, Mitch McConnell and the theocratic fascists they installing on federal courts.
5
No one seems to mention that the DNC, by facilitating Clinton’s candidacy, gave us having to choose the lesser or two evils. Neither Hillary nor the Donald were electable but at least he didn’t embrace the Bernie Bros to pander for their votes.
What are the morals of a person who votes to preserve a system that basically enslaves US citizens for the benefit of the very very rich? The shirinking middle class pays all the taxes and the Republicans collect, invest and enslave. It is a very simple and obvious system. But I suppose someone had to replace “ legally “ held slaves.
3
Enslave? That is offensive. Slavery is a brutal and inhumane concept and as practiced in this country involved forcibly removing people from another continent based upon their race, placing them in chains, transporting them in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, selling them on open markets and legally treating them as personal property. Remove any one of those factors and it isn’t slavery. Pay someone a low wage or price healthcare beyond their reach and you have a the downside of capitalism but it IS NOT SLAVERY!
1
In my profile of Chief Justice Roberts here, see can see how particularly naive and idealistic he is when it comes to issues of race. He thinks abstractly, not about how things work in the real world. This makes his rulings on race hugely problematic: https://realcontextnews.com/the-unreal-judge-how-chief-justice-robertss-mind-transcends-reality/
3
No it is worse.
The five are members of a right wing cult of Roman Catholics and fellow travelers from Ivy League schools known as the federalist society. The five are a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority that have views shared by almost no one else.
Everyone was elected on the promise to the Republican Senate that their judicial votes were for sure.
To know how they will vote throw out precedent and read federalist society literature.
No sane person can believe that this group have or tolerate open minds.
6
Historically, the Supreme Court has always been conservative. Except for a rare, and all to brief, period of time after the 2nd World War (1946-1969) when the court had progresssive leadership, conservative rulings have been the norm.
2
Disagree with the general tenor of the article. Chief Justice Roberts is allowed to have conservative ideas which differ from those of the general readership of the times. He is fair, balanced, and respectable, and has done the right thing. Supporting a conservative cause while respecting and strengthening the institutions of the country is not partisan.
5
Left and right are political labels that really don't exist independently. What we're dealing with is us vs. them, two different worldviews, both of which could be more or less wrong -- if wrong objectively exists.
Kierkegaard famously claimed that "truth is subjectivity." It sure seems like it; my subjective view is flawless, yours is a mess, how can you not see that!
Unfortunately, science can't decide which viewpoint is correct, unless and until goals are created first -- via subjectivity.
Hume said that ethics are derived and supported by feelings. You can't get an Ought from an Is.
So we're doomed to function with only our biased visceral computers to guide us, thus guaranteeing disagreement, anger, and conflict.
Our heightened emotions and stubbornness have brought us to a political quagmire, and we just can't lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Pogo's Dictum, as so often, describes our current situation well.
1
@Jim Muncy writes: "Unfortunately, science can't decide which viewpoint is correct, unless and until goals are created first -- via subjectivity."
We created our goals when the nation was founded, and they are expressed in the Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution. The present Court (and GOP) seems to be purposely ignoring them.
7
@Jim Muncy: We know that we understand physics to the extent our mathematical models can describe it. Nature self-organizes, and so does the language of math.
1
@MJ
I agree, but our original state documents are flawed with subjectivity, are they not? For instance, our Founding Fathers considered slaves as 3/5 of a human.
first and foremost these are challenging times that have never been seen before with Respect to the Honorable Justice John Roberts it is highly understood that the Supreme Court of the United States always be a third branch of the Government, however, the Republican Party in which the judge participates is now assaulting the Constitution which Created the Judicial Branch, no party be it, Democrats
or Republicans should ever state or be given the power to overrule the Constitution. the founding fathers never anticipated the corruption of Donald Trump, his cabinet and the Republicans, any attorney from the Republican Party fighting the just inquiry such as impeachment and using the power of partisanship should automatically have their law license suspended until which time they can prove that they are working for the people as the founding fathers and their constitutional framework requires, Since Judge Roberts does not want to bring this Court into this modern fight, he should also be following the constitution and setting rules for both the Democrats and Republicans, no one is asking him to trial this impeachment yet. but he should be firm in stating that all documents within reason requested by the Democrats ARE TO BE TURNED OVER without objection from the White House, their attorneys or the Republican Party, The Democrats should not be going "Willie-Nillie" by asking for anything not pertaining to the impeachment, it should be like filing a warrant in front of a judge.
1
If Roberts is truly concerned about the court's legacy, it is time to act on it as this court is no better than an arm of the Republican party.
Does he think Hobby Lobby, Citizen's United, Shelby County v. Holder, or the tortured reasoning in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett have not injured the public's view of the court as impartial?
Sorry, Roberts, that ship has sailed.
10
The current court has its own version of the Constitution, unfortunately it is not the one the majority of Americans share.
We don't even know where it is available.
4
Roberts: activism for wealth and power, while posturing as above the fray.
6
The usage of the word "conservative" has drifted a long ways from the dictionary definition when it is applied to the political and social Right. Today it appears to mean different things to different groups within the Right. For some it means guiding life for all of us according to their particular religious beliefs, while for others, it means believing life is a zero-sum event and that if anybody outside the tribe gets any benefits the tribe loses. And then there are the corporate and wealthy interests that play upon the fears of those driven by religion or fear of the Other (the groups have a significant overlap) to gain some benefit at a cost to the rest of us. Repbulican Party politics and rightwing jurisprudence at the top work for the benefit of the corporate and wealthy interests.
Journalists should stop using the word "conservative" to describe the political and social Right. Beyond that, they should also stop using the word conservative to describe autocrats and theocrats around the world. None of it has anything to do with conservatism.
6
SCOTUS has agreed to take on 5 very high profile and volatile cases this term, including one on guns that is moot. Why? Justice Beerpong and Justice Asterisk (Gorsuch) owe their benefactors some payback. In the end, will Roberts allow the legitimacy of the Court to be destroyed? My vote is yes. He only cares about the short term benefits to the GOP and the long term interests of the .000001%.
He miscalculates on this. The blowback against the GOP, the Court and Roberts will be swift and severe.
4
I think it's time to reform the Supreme court. The framers never envisioned Supreme Court justices sitting well into their late 80' and 90's making judicial decisions effecting the magnitude of American society. Originally the lack of term limits for the Supreme Court was to ensure the Judicial branch of our checks and balances from pressure to enact the wishes of those who put them there. However justices for life (Justice Roberts beginning his 15th term) has become politicized playing into people's extreme tendencies overlooking their better judgement when electing a President. During the 2016 election it was the Supreme court which dangled like a campaign promise out in front of the evangelicals so against abortion and LGBTQ rights that rendered them immune to the disastrous aspects of a Trump Presidency. Term limits would remove that politicization of the Supreme Court.
3
A conservative interpretation of the law is bad because it reflects the Republican party. That means looking to the meaning of the law at the time it was written is somehow bad. The expansive rule of extrapolating meaning as you think it should be written today is better? There is no mention of human reproduction in the Constitution but the Supreme Court can imply one under the expansive rule but not under an interpretation based on the words of the Constitution. Never mind that the so-called Equal Rights Amendment failed. If you don't like an interpretation of the Words of the Constitution don't amend it or rely on the legislature - just say it means what you like. If you don't like the interpretation of the words, stack the Court with people who will say it means what you want to hear rather than what the words really say.
I never bought Justice Roberts comment about only calling "balls and strikes" and his confirmation hearing. All of us are brought up in a community with a certain worldview. It is the rare individual who is able to step out of who they are to understand who someone else is. That is why diversity on the court is vital to maintaining its legitimacy. Unfortunately, with Moscow Mitch at the helm, the Senate has viewed the court as just another Republican committee ---being stacked by conservative white men who are Catholic...let's just say the strike zone has become considerably narrow.
1
I believe if Roberts follows the constitution, rule of law, and know in his heart, and by doing those two things he will come out alright. I am so glad that he is not a trump appointtee.
Conservative? Hardly. Right wing extremist is more like it. Fascist is most accurate. Any group that consistently overturns precedent to reduce human rights and increase the power of the wealthy and big corporations is no way a "Conservative". Quit allowing the Red Lemmings to frame the discussion with Orwellian double-speak.
6
Too soft. "It's democracy, stupid" should be shouted from the roof tops. Gut the Voting rights act; permit unlimited dark money, permit excessive Gerrymandering. Changing the rules to help one party is more dangerous than any particular policy.
6
This is an article about the U.S. Subprime Court, right?
1
One major change has occurred with the rightwing take over of the Supreme Court. Its clearer the courts are not above partisan maneuvering, they are part of it.
More of the public is now aware that the judiciary is a political body, not a neutral caller of "balls and strikes". When judges make decisions, they in essence make the rules. They don't just "interpret" - the weild power directly, often in ways which can't be undone.
2
If you read The Chief..the account of the life of Chief Justice Roberts it will be obvious that he is what he is and his conservative decisions follow from that. To expect anything else from him is hopeless.
2
This has been obvious for years, but it needed to be said.
1
Couldn't agree more. Robert's is more dangerous than Thomas or Alito or Gorsuch or Kavannaugh as he tries to project an open-minded approach to the law and constitution. If you overturn long-standing precedents by 5-4 majorities, you are a tool of the right.
I am not for Court packing, but I fear that, becasue the Republican Senate has appointed a perjury to the Supreme Court and so many truly unqualified justices to the Apelate and District Court, that might be the only option we have to preserve our freedom.
4
How else would you expect him to act? As well as being a corporate attorney for years, he was also part of the "Brooks Brothers" mob that was screaming and beating on windows in Florida trying to stop the recount of the Florida ballots during the Bush v. Gore debacle. Another "shining moment" in court history.
3
Hear, Hear. To have any doubt about current bunch of Justices appointed by Republican Presidents being extremely partisan is like putting blinders on in the hope of avoiding conflict.
1
Interesting read. Basically Roberts is a phony, pretends to be reasonable, with a long term anti people, pro corporation agenda.
3
Before people foam at the mouth over the results of the authors' "analysis", can we get a little more objective?
Their methodology was as quoted, "To determine whether an outcome was partisan, we assumed that if at least four liberal justices voted for a decision in a split ruling, then the outcome was consistent with Democratic Party values and goals. And if at least four conservative justices voted similarly, then the outcome was considered consistent with Republican Party values and goals."
What a lack of rigor. You're assigning the hypothesized label/outcome to the persons a priori (using what determination by the way?) and using how these parse out as a way of defining the outcome. And there was apparently no independent analysis confirming the predictive impact of these assignments.
And then, to add biased insult on top of injury, you discount completely the times when Judge Roberts swings the other direction as the work of a "master tactician". What kind of scientist discounts non-conforming data this way?
Are you guys empiricists or not? Also, it seems like it's not that you don't want a partisan court, it's just that you want a partisan court swinging the other way. Ugh. By the way, I say this as someone who thought that the Kavanaugh hearings were a travesty, and that he should have a seat on the court.
Aaron Belkin and Sean McElwee are right that the SCOTUS is illegitimate; replacing red plutocrats with blue plutocrats will not make it legitimate.
Like their confederates in the other government branches, the upper level judges' wealth and income exceeds the median of us, we the people.
Whether and how that affects their schemes, their policies, and their decrees is an empirical political science problem.
If Belkin and McElwee pack the court, plutocracy remains evil and unacceptably illegitimate.
4
The author is probably right. Now have him analyze Brandeis, Warren, Marshall, Brennan and Douglas through the same lens and get back to us. One parties partisan hack is the other parties defender of justice. It's the ebb and flow of politics and the courts. We'll survive.
3
Roberts and his conservative cohorts choose cases that fit their political agenda. For him to he's only calling balls and strikes is laughable. They select the cases they want to review already knowing exactly how they will vote, i.e., Citizens United. Expect more of the same. He and the other conservatives on the court seem to not be believers in democracy.
2
Justice with my religious background, Roman Catholicism, have ruined the Supreme Court and any semblance of being non-partisan.
3
Roberts rose through the GOP ranks as a Reagan administration political hack, working as a foot soldier in Reagan's War on Women. He has been a consistent enemy of women for his entire career as a judge and Justice.
3
Kavanaugh’s seat was Trump’s to appoint. Gorsuch on the other hand shot have been Garland.
2
Thank you.
no need for Roberts to worry. Unless you are a compete imbecile or been living under a rock for the last 40 years you know that the supreme court is about as fair and balanced as the RNC
3
It is about folling the constuitution andthe law. Nothing in your article about that.
1
In the country’s march toward fascism , trump increasingly owns the judiciary.
4
What? The article attempts to assert that the Court's lefties ( RBG, Sotomayor, Kagan ) are nonpartisan?
3
As a registered Republican, I became perplexed with why conservatives think the way they do. Their beliefs are not logical or rational. Like denying AGW, or red states denying free healthcare for their poor via the ACA. I finally figured it out and promptly quit the party. The reason is almost entirely unconscious from evolution. Yes, they are predisposed to think the way they do. All the brainpower, education and experience of the Supreme Court Justices, is overwhelmed by simply how they were born. All that brainpower and yet they fit along the political spectrum exactly the same as the rest of us. The root cause is fear. It is on a continuum, the more you have, the further right you go. At the far right, the most common symptom is the sense that everyone is out to get you which is why conservatives deny AGW or expanding Medicaid, government is one of many things out to get them. This is not rational thought, nor is the misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment. The fear can even be measured by the size of one's right amygdala by an MRI. Information first passes through the amygdala and can be rejected before it even gets to the cortex where rational thought occurs. It is a primitive survival mechanism, useful during the first 50,000 generations of humans, but not the last 500. You could even pre-qualify justices by having their amygdala measured to be sure they were right in the center of the range. Preposterous for sure. Kind of an inconvenient truth.
1
As a liberal Democrat, I look with dread at the current composition of the Supreme Court and consider Mitch McConnell's unconscionable partisanship, that led to Neil Gorsuch's appointment, a mark of shame for both men. That said, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the assumption that "conservative" means "partisan" in this and every case. The authors are asking us to believe that there is no such thing as an authentic conservative, with principled positions. Even in these trying and desperate times, that's too cynical for me. One of the most distressing aspects of our current politics is that fact that the "other side" is not just mistaken, or even wrong, but evil. That they are actually destroying the country. And, frankly, with people like Trump and McConnell and Jim Jordan it's easy to see why. Their actions feed this cynicism. I disagree with most everything the Roberts court does these days, but I don't believe the conservatives are motivated by base Republican party interests. If we go down that path, we're lost. At least I am.
102
@g. harlan - "The authors are asking us to believe that there is no such thing as an authentic conservative, with principled positions. "
Can you name one?
This is what I have come to believe based on my own observations (and refusal to not disbelieve my own eyes and ears as Trump as asked us to do). At least in terms of those so-called conservatives in positions in government. While there may be some authentic private citizen conservatives, even those I have come believe lack principles due to their continued support of unprincipled people and unprincipled actions that they have enabled.
What I have come to believe is that none of these so-called principles were in fact principles. If they were they would no be so easily abandoned for expediency. We've seen them for what they are, a convenient cover to gain the power that is at the core of conservatism as currently practiced.
47
@g. harlan My husband and I have this debate very frequently. I think the question is whether the Republican-appointed, Federalist Society approved justices use consistent techniques of interpretation regardless of the issue involved. Or whether their votes are outcome-determinative -- based on the outcome that they want. The decision on whether Title VII bars discrimination against individuals who are LGBTQ will be a good test of whether the textualists (judges who say they are governed by the text of the statute and not legislative intent) are intellectually honest. And there are plenty of other cases in the pipeline that will test whether the justices are intellectually honest conservatives or simply partisan. Will they give Trump more leeway than Obama or a new Democratic president when it comes to Presidential power?
12
@Marie
My problem with your reasoning is that it cuts both ways. People on the right will say much the same thing. Likewise, with ES's comment re. decisions that are "outcome determinitive". Anyone can say any of these things any time to delegitimize their opponent. I grant its satisfying to make these charges, but not convincing.
2
You should pray for Justice Ginsburg's health.
3
A case about Title VII of the Civil Rights Act with respect to ability to fire LGBT people is on its current docket. This Court will rule it is legal to discriminate against 5% of Americans for the way they are born, just as it permitted open discrimination against Blacks for hundreds of years. I fully expect to see signs in scores of thousands of windows of businesses throughout the country saying NO QUEERS ALLOWED. America the land of the free and the home of the brave?
1
What a rotten pack of falsehoods - it was Roberts who met with Obama to push through healthcare despite the legal argument being utterly flimsy.
1
@Omar Ghaffar Except you mistake what was flimsy. In a non partisan call them as you see them based on the rule of stare decisis, the SCOTUS would never have allowed the spurious claims against the ACA to reach the SCOTUS.
1
Biases, whether explicit or implicit, impact the information judges hear and consider as well as how they interpret that information. John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, has said, “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” In the sense that judges and justices determine the outcome, Chief Justice Roberts is correct in his assessment. Regardless, a judge’s role typically involves far more subjectivity than does that of an umpire. And, the more subjectivity involved, the greater the potential for the influence of bias, which constrains the information actually heard and considered. This, in turn, leads to impaired critical thinking, assuming critical thinking is even occurring. It bears mentioning that while many different types of biases exist and may have different causes, the impact of bias is the same, regardless of type.
In his article From Legal Formalist to Legal Realist, Myron Moskowitz, an appellate attorney in Northern California admitted to the State Bar of California in 1965, described that his many years in the field have caused him to realize the following:
“A judge is a judge. When a judge believes that a certain result is the fair one, he or she will often find a way to reach it…. [In order to obtain] some particular desired result, an appellate judge might bend the words of the statute a bit or reinterpret some dicta to justify that result. “
1
Thank you NYT!
Roberts ain’t so warm and fuzzy, is he?
1
Oh, and the liberal justices are not partisan, LOL?
3
I have lost faith in the Supreme Court and have no respect for them.
Worthless.
3
Oh, don't worry, we didn't fall for it.
When a SC justice is confirmed or not confirmed because the confirmers know how that judge will decide on issues before they reach the court, the justices will be partisan.
1
Roberts claims he is nothing more that an umpire calling balls and strikes He is not. He is a batter with a leaded bat and stare decisis be damed.
3
@Philip Weltin That is an unfair exaggeration and perhaps an example of your partisanship. Roberts is the figurehead above an entire branch of government, and has always displayed intense intellectual loyalty to the preservation of balance between our three branches of government than to any political party, cause, or issue.
2
Let's let go of the childish fantasy that the "supreme" court is a non-partisan institution. Anyone paying attention knows Roberts has always been "as partisan as they come" as is every other Republican/Federalist judge on the "supreme" court. The fact that the media allowed Roberts gaslight them into believing he was an "umpire" who would just call balls and strikes is yet another example of how it does not do its job.
Republicans do not believe in democracy. Full stop. Roberts is the head of the Republican "supreme" court and as such will do whatever the Koch network wants.
3
John Roberts, the Umpire in Chief. If only it were so easy, as he put it, to just call balls and strikes.
The analogy of judges with umpires calls to mind the perspectives of three umpires: the first, “I call 'em like they are”; the second, “I call 'em like I see 'em”: the third, “They ain't nothin' til I call 'em!”
As the best judges, both purposists and textualists, have figured out, only the third umpire has the self awareness, necessary to avoid in their decisions their cognitive bias and the unrelenting intrusion of their own personal history, perspective, and ethos.
That Roberts was on the far right was evident from the moment Roberts was nominated.
It wasn't only that he didn't recuse himself on a case before him involving the Bush administration, which signaled that he saw himself above ethical concerns, but that he spent his early years as an extremely partisan member of the Reagan Administration. And that Bush would appoint him; he didn't appoint moderates anywhere.
It was almost bizarre the way Democrats let him get away with his 'balls and strikes' nonsense--that was a dodge if there ever was one.
That people are telling us he's no moderate now is a thankful reminder, but one that should have been far more pointed when he was nominated.
1
In the previous century, I believed that the supreme court justices actually cared about fairness and justice. That belief was upended abruptly by the Supreme's Bush vs Gore 2000 decision. Their later decisions such as Citizens United have only confirmed this.
In this century, the justices on the right care little about fairness and justice. Underneath it all, their true priority is to enable the political agenda of today's GOP. Justice be damned.
3
Given Robert’s voting record on ObamaCare I am confused by the analysis done by the authors of this article. He has voted with his conservative colleagues 100% of the time on health issues?!?
I don’t think so...
Had to stop reading the article after I saw that...
1
He should worry? WE should worry. We are worried. Very.
1
five republican advocates, none
of which is a real justice.
1
Replace the word "conservative" with "constitutional" in this piece and it really starts to make sense.
2
The SC preformed a coup when the Gore decision.
Then Moscow Mitch's actions have stuffed the courts in favor of the oligarchs.
If people don't get off the couch and vote this time. Then we get what we as a people deserve.
7
Don't be fooled? At what, that the Dems want the majority to push their own agenda? But this article is small potatoes to the upcoming NY Times assault on the Supreme Court, opinion pieces designed as news stories to try to sway public opinion to urge the court toward left wing decisions. And don't blame Roberts. Dems do the same thing.
4
No one is fooled by any of these Republicans.
1
@Chelle I'm not fooled by the Democrats.
2
It's not the legitimacy of SCOTUS I'm concerned about; it's that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh got in.
McConnell should've been censured; and the Republicans who approved Kavanaugh, were deaf, dumb and blind over the accusations.
That said, it's all moot. The damage is done.
1
@Ponsobny Britt In this country, we don't destroy people over "accusations." At least not yet.
3
@Southern Man: Let's consider this; Kavanaugh's conduct during his confirmation hearings, is a little too similar to Trump's conduct over the pending impeachment hearings; and now, continuation of treated lawsuits over his tax returns
If there was a nothing to hide, why did Kavanaugh, and Trump, act in such a defensive manner?
Simple: They're both bald-faced liars. . Kavanaugh got a "pass," despite all but incriminating himself. And Trump? Do you pay attention to his paranoia, via his tweets?
1
....and RBG and the ‘wise latina’ are not political?.
Those 2 are worse for the rule of law that CJ Roberts could be on his worst day.
5
The Supreme Court has been illegitimate since Bush v. Gore.
2
I have little-to-no confidence in SOTUS these days. I mean, really? Clarence Thomas? What a disgrace to our nation.He has NO intellect, and a very controlling nonintellectual, self righteous wife. They're repulsive to me and lead me to believe there is little hope for rational, benevolent, law-abiding governing in the USA anymore now that we have Trump and Moscow Mitch.
4
and this is why Trump will win.
2
Keep praying! You never know.
I saw a pig flying the other day in Central Park.
2
The Birchian wing of the GOP has spent decades getting us to this horrible moment. They've stolen their SCOTUS majority as well as the executive branch. They're not going to give up on this opportunity to steal all of our wealth and enslave us in a totalitarian nightmare over 'reputation'. Roberts is going to plunge the dagger in the back of decency and democracy and twist and twist and twist. At the end of his rampage, we'll be nothing but illiterate, illiberal serfs at the mercy of the hands of an angry god and a few elite enjoying their hedonistic pleasures behind closed doors.
People imagine removing the executive branch of the regime is possible and could be helpful. Too late. We're done. Onto the phase of totalitarianism where any and all but a narrow range of compliant behavior is 'deviant'. They will come after anyone who's not white, straight, and Christian. Women and non-whites will be driven back to property status. Heretics, artists, and thinkers will be deviants, excluded at best, destroyed if resistant. The LGTBQ community will be driven back into the closet and subjected to horrific pain and torture and death.
We lost and evil, hateful, brutalists reign supreme. They will voluntarily give up nothing.
2
Let’s VOTE for them.
Isn't this exactly what the left wants to do?
1
It’s not just the regular workings of the court that matter. IF the Senate under McConnell ever takes up impeachment from the House, Roberts will preside at the trial. Does anyone expect that to go well?
https://www.twopartyopera.com/comic/we-the-people-impeachment/
2
Well, if anyone understands partisan, it's the writers employed here.
4
The court could lose it's legitimacy entirely if they keep this charade up. Americans are paying attention and we want a real court, not a partisan, corrupt one.
1
Gutting the voting rights protection and turning down partisan gerrymandering is a racist act of what other modern courts have upheld. Roberts is a racist in the opinion of a black man and former Republican like me. His ruling ran me out of the Party. He doesn't care about what people think. He don't believe in the rule of law or full equality for all America's citizens. If he has feelings there brand new. His rulings show he doesn't have any. He's as cold blooded as a reptile. How many "cold Conservative Catholics" are they going to put on the Court? We need to march on the Robert's court.
1
The Supreme Court is a pack of right wing political fixers, their loyalties well known and their decisions as predictable as the tides. Hence, the desperation to confirm a specimen like Brett Kavanaugh.
The court's susceptibility to being made illegitimate occurred to us when Reagan nominated Bork. We saw it reduced to a political weapon when Bush nominated Clarence Thomas. And we saw a stake driven into its heart when Garland was passed over for Kavanaugh.
Going forward, any pretense that the Supreme Court is respectable and legitimate is a desperate bit of playacting.
2
The court seems to have chosen the most contentious and divisive cases it can find for this term. This has all the earmarks of a coming out party for a hard-right Republican court and, if the decisions come down as most people fear they will, it will end the perception of the court as representative of the nation.
Historians may end up seeing this as a tactical victory but a strategic defeat of the decades long plan by the Republican party to turn the court into an offensive arm of their policy. Once the court loses its legitimacy in the eyes of the people of your nation it will be beyond redemption in its current form.
Given these likely hard-right decisions will be happening in an election year, I don't see any good outcome for the Republican party or subsumed court.
2
Justice Roberts is indeed highly partisan. The article overlooks the test which shows that most clearly.
There is one category of cases most directly linked to politics—those which actually affect the political process, and sway election outcomes. Those include various kinds of issues, such as gerrymandering, campaign finance, union political funding, corporate political participation, voter registration, voter IDs, voter suppression, ballot counting, campaign speech, and other such overtly political subject matter.
That first class should be distinguished from another class of cases which stimulate strong partisan divides, but which do not directly affect election outcomes. Examples of the latter group include abortion-related cases, gun rights cases, and health care issues.
On that second class of cases, Roberts has shown himself willing, at times, to deviate from strict partisan orthodoxy. That willingness has earned him whatever reputation he can claim as a centrist on the court.
Take Back the Court should analyze separately the first class of cases, the ones where election results are actually in play. As far as I can recall, there has never been one instance since Roberts came to the Court, among many cases of that kind, where Roberts did not side with the outcome Republicans prefer.
5
Chief Justice Roberts' tenure has just been a continuation of his predecessor, Chief Justice Rehnquist. It's not so much partisan as it is just a very conservative judicial philosophy that does not reflect what many people want out of our judges. The state/federal power balance is an issue that these types of judges see very conservatively and that is just out of line with the direction many people think the country should go in. That along with narrow interpretations of the rights conferred in the first 8 amendments of the constitution and an unwillingness to find that those rights are violated except in the most egregious of circumstances have been the hallmarks of the conservative approach. Nowadays people care about the individual protections the Constitution offers more than the protections of which powers the federal govt can exercise. The Court does not seem to care about interpreting those rights in ways that make common sense and offer genuine protection for individuals.
5
Let the cameras in so everyone can see what is going on in real time-like CSPAN. It was once thought that Supreme Court judges were above this. They are clearly just as partisan as the rest of the country and do not deserve this privilege. They should also be forced to have press conferences and respond the questions from the media just like everyone else. Lifetime appointments should be done away with. They make major decisions and should be held accountable.
5
Three words: pack the court. Republicans don't play fair. Assuming a Democrat wins in 2020, they shouldn't either.
4
I'm one of those folks who does not view everything, including SCOTUS and the Justices, though a political lense. In my view, any number of legitimate judicial interpretation theories that will align with a giving political philosophy. This good versus evil or binary model is an intellectually lazy and easy way for the media to report on SCOTUS legal matters.
Even though I vehemently disagree with Chief Justice across a wide range of issues and decisions that he has rendered, I believe he is an accomplished and distinguished lawyer and has proven himself to be a justice of the first order. Chief Justice Roberts is no political hack! Now tell me, is he a pragmatic judicial institutionalist who is also Burkean conservative or not.
4
Why not require the following:
1) retirement age of judges is 75 (and have a system to retire currently over this age) - ensures a good churn - new ideas
2) confirmation must require a support of 2/3 or 3/4 of the senate - ensures very little partisan judges, no matter who controls senate.
3) the above cannot be overridden by the controlling party - so this should be an amendment or a law that requires 3/4 senate to delete.
Unfortunately no politician will like this as it will remove partisanship.
1
@SC "Remove partisanship"? Not with Moscow Mitch unilaterally and arbitrarily "deciding" what will or will not be voted on in the Senate. THIS is the obstructionism we need removed from our government. Without that, there is NO "voice of he people" on Capitol Hill.
McConnell violates his oath to the Constitution every day. Remove him, KY!
2
Citizens United, courtesy of Alito and Roberts is the "benchmark" ruling that defined Roberts as an opponent of "one man, one vote", thus seriously eroding the foundation of representative democracy in our government.
Allowing dark money to flood our election process has been reprehensible, and bizarrely hypocritical, in a country founded on the principles of freedom and equal protection under the law.
Citizens United MUST be legislated out of existence.
9
Having worked on overseas development for many years, I've seen that one thing that autocrats and other anti-democratic forces seek to do is to control their nations' judiciaries. Sadly, under the autocratic Trump and the vote-suppressing Republican Party, the United States is lurching in that direction. Thanks for this fine article and the work of Take Back the Court in illuminating this crisis.
7
Restore Court Balance
When Democrats take the House, Senate & beat Trump (knock hard and do the work), we must correct the historic wrong by MItch McConnel & GOP Senate in stealing a Supreme Court seat
At the very least, we must and should add & fill 2 seats on the Supreme Court to make up for the Supreme Court that was stolen.
This stolen seat created a historic imbalance on the court. Seating two Justices under the next Democratic President will be right, fair, and just.
Otherwise McConnell gets away with destroying the traditions of the Senate and the court's historic balance.
5
@Peter
Do we really want to go down this road.
What if Trump is re-elected, the Republicans re-take the House and Mitch McConnell then decides to add 6 new seats to the Court, arguing that Democrats have threatened to do this, thus sanctioning such a move by Republicans.
He used the so called (fabricated) Biden Rule to justify not voting on Garland. There is no level to which McConnell won't stoop.
My suggestion-if a Dem wins, more than likely at that point several justices will be replaced. Given the general trend in voting, any Dem elected will likely be easily re-elected.
I think we have a good chance of taking the Court back without pulling a fast one.
1
Not only is the current majority of the Supreme Court beholden to the Federalist Society but of the 5 right wing judges 4 of them are Catholic, using their religion to undermine the constitutional separation of church and state.
6
The courts have always been a defender of the propertied white male agenda. That entrenchment is so deep and so normalized it’s nearly invisible. While disheartened by that fact it’s only with the current extreme overreach will it see any daylight at all.
4
The SCOTUS decision on the abortion case next June will be the greatest motivator of democratic voters ever. After Citizens United (read corporations united), Bush v Gore, and Moscow McConnells blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination, the SCOTUS to this voter is a sad reflection of our loss of democracy. Remember one person one vote? Didn't think you did. The SCOTUS is beholden to Corporations, deep pocketed rich individuals, and the NRA.
With the likes of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh on the bench, who could take it seriously?
7
Facts don't need this many adjectives. Advocacy doesn't belong near the court.
3
Remember the Warren court. And the activist judiciary? And how everyone thought that was just great? And those dopey conservatives who insisted on precedence and adherence to the constitution? And how they were all so wrong?
Liberals wanted an activist judiciary. They cannot now complain that they have one....
4
You neatly overlook that McDonnell, one individual, changed the number of justices to 8 for 15 months. That seat was stolen, and Kavanaugh, the pusher of Vince Foster murder conspiracy, should not be there since Trump was not elected by majority. If court remains out of step with the majority, it will indeed lose credibility... has happened in the past
1
Since Brown v. Board, our counterparts on the right have known that preserving white hegemony and safeguarding the more substantial rights of those who have money can only come from elevating right-wingers to the bench.
Consider how docile our side was when Mitch McConnell decreed that Merrick Garland wasn't even going to get a vote. Imagine the shoe on the other foot: A partisan Democratic Senator sidelines a GOP Supreme Court nomination in order to keep the seat open for the next President. There might have been Second Amendment solutions.
Let's face it: Their side argues for a return to 19th Century to mid-1960's America where women did what they were told and Separate But Equal meant that black students shared textbooks while the white kids got new gymnasiums, where gay people hid in closets, when Leave It To Beaver symbolized the domestic Pax Americana. Today, John Roberts is Eddie Haskell all grown up. His manners are exquisite around anyone who might object as he can enacts his agenda under cover of darkness, our willful ignorance.
Who actually believed that George W. Bush, the spawn of Cheney and Koch, would nominate a man to the Supreme Court who would look kindly on environmental regulations and workers' rights? Who believed that the nominee would actually consider cases that argued that the Second Amendment was an act of insanity that prescribed that some of our least mentally capable be our most heavily armed?
The barn door is open, and the horse is gone.
5
This article uses statistics to assume its premise. By relying on 42 split decisions rather than looking at the body of work in its entirety, the articles misses the fact that the Chief Justice votes with the majority predominantly across all cases, including those with "liberal" outcomes. In fact, in two separate terms, the Chief Justice has voted with the liberal block in excess of 90% of the opinions that would be considered "liberal." SCOTUSBlog does a better job aggregating and breaking down the data set in its entirety (https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/03/empirical-scotus-is-the-court-tracking-right-or-roberts-left/). This reads as a hit piece - particularly when noting without explanation that Obamacare shouldn't have been close in the first place. 5 justices on the commerce clause and expansion issues differed, as did the circuit split giving rise to cert in the first place. That throwaway line certainly warrants context.
3
@Sam
That laughable article distorted raw data. It could just as easily be argued that the liberal block votes with the Conservatives 70 plus percent of the time.
5-4 votes occur in only 19% of the cases. Almost 60% of the cases are 9-0 and another 15% or so are 6-3, 7-2 or 8-1.
In other words, this article is utter nonsense trying to hide the obvious.
The cases that matter are the handful which engender a partisan divide.
Roberts is a tool of those who seek to return to the darkest and most regressive behaviors of darkness. He spent the better part of his carreer fighting to gut the Voting Rights Act and is one of the Five Federast Society members on the Supreme Court, most who arrived in their position as the result of the massively undue influence of Leonard Leo, the most active active and influential head of the Federalist Societ and a member of the militant branch and sovereign nation of the Catholic Church, the Knights of Malta. Leonard has been good friends with Kochs for many years as he is with our current attorney criminal Barr.
These Federalists Society members do not believe in voting rights, women's rights, the right of a government to enforce the right to clean water, clean air, worker safety or anything else.
They are in my view essential judicial lobbyists who have been through political machinations placed in positions that would otherwise require the highest integrity and commitment to the development of a more just and humane society.
Indeed these five Federalist Society Men, lead by Roberts represent the greatest threat to our democracy of any small group of people in the history of our nation. These men are tools of old money, oil money, and the will of regressive world views held by those who still don't believe women can be priests or that birth control is a sin. What these men do and decide is the deepest sin and they don't care.
5
He is likely as equally partisan as the authors of this letter. Maybe even slightly less so. Lucky for me, I am not beholden to either party.
5
Then it's about time to change the name to the Extreme Court.
5
So we amend the Constitution to state that 1st Amendment rights can be exercised by individuals only, not by corporate entities? is this good for NY Times, Washington Post, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, etc.?
just think "Citizens United", that recognized corporations as people, to assess John Roberts. he owns that, and it was the worst ruling for our country in our history, outside of slavery.
6
Roberts is a Republican apparatchik just like the other four "cons" on the court. The damage he and the all the Republicans have done to our nation may be fatal. They have given money the right to vote and they pander to the fringes of the citizenry. I have no expectation that the Republicans even know what the right thing to do is any more. Their minds are completely controlled by the greed of Republican donors.
3
Republicans have been lying for years about the Court. They say they want those who believe in judicial restraint and strict constructionists. Like Justice Souter. What they are for is radical justices who believe in judicial activism. It is not surprising that that heart Roberts fits that mold.
2
John Roberts perjured himself in his testimony before the Senate to become CJ. There is only one thing that stops him from being totally corrupt, and that is his egotistical desire not to be seen by history as central to the destruction of the Constitution. Anything he can do that avoids that perceptual thin ice, he will do. Trust him? Not on my life.
2
The Supreme Court is as useless as the Congress.
Three co-equal branches of government? That’s laughable.
The wannabe king sits in the White House, waiting for his coronation.
We’re back in the Middle Ages.
3
We are now ruled by the most retrograde, authoritarian, socially rigid, religiously backward, uneducated, unhealthy,obese,sick, poverty-stricken part of the country: the South. We need another Great Migration of all those who possibly can to leave, to migrate to the north, the centre, and the west: to the best educated, most innovative, richest parts of the country, the lands of opportunity. Sad to allow the South to sink to third world levels, but that is their choice. Get out now people!
3
@Repat OR, stay there and work to bring your neighbors into the 21st century. You can do it.
If Roberts is "the extreme, right-wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority", then how do we explain the piece written in NYBooks by David Cole of the ACLU, which portrays him as a level-headed Chief Justice? Neither Cole, nor are the two institutes (ACLU andNYBooks) known to be taking sides with the right. I guess, these days whoever is not 100% on our side must be an extremist.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/08/15/john-roberts-supreme-court-keeping-up-appearances/
4
@SN
"Opinions vary".
2
Keep in mind that two of the justices (both appointed by Trump) were put on the bench by Republican president who received nearly 3 million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent.
Two others (Roberts and Alito) were appointed by a similarly situated GOP president, and although G.W. Bush made the appointments after winning a second term with a majority of the votes, he would never have been in position to make those two appointments if he had not been put in office in 2000--by a highly political supreme court decision, so shockingly ungrounded in legal reasoning or precedent that the majority specifically indicated that their holding should not be relied upon for precedent.
In the elections between 1968 and 1988, GOP candidates secured the most votes 5 of 6 times. All 10 Supreme Court appointments during that 24 years were by Republicans (poor Jimmy Carter never had a vacancy to fill).
Since that time, Democrats got the most votes in 6 of 7 elections, but have filled only 4 of the 8 vacancies. McConnell refused to even allow debate or a vote on the last nominee by majority-winning President Obama. He then rushed thorough the Trump appointees by eliminating the filibuster.
And the GOP majority Senate that confirmed them consists of members whose aggregate vote totals are actually 18 million more for Democrats than for Republican.
So the partisan majority led by Roberts has a legitimacy problem from the get-go.
But that won't stop them from reshaping the law.
3
Most people, including the authors, simply root for the Court to be a supra-legislative body that will produce desired political results. If it acts as such, it has no legitimacy in a republican democracy and, more to the practical point, it then has the power to reverse political policies you approve of that were enacted by a Congress or an Administration you favor.
All this article fundamentally demonstrates is that in these polarized, non-communal times, everything becomes a Rorschach blot. We tend to see in everything that which we wish were the case or fear is or will become the case.The authors (as do most people) simply do not understand the judicial review function of the Supreme Court and the severe constraints it operates under to make legitimate in a democracy the power of an appointed body to negate the "will of the people" as expressed through their elected representatives.
Unfortunately, civics is no longer a required subject in most high schools. Also, it appears that many pundits busily pontificating on the Supreme Court never took a university course in Constitutional Law.
3
The hypocrisy of John Roberts as described herein is appalling true reflection of the Chief Justice.
The truth is that the Roberts Supreme Court majority has been a major ally in the Republican drive to roll back democracy on behalf of the super-wealthy. This nation said its last goodbyes to democracy with the Robert’s Supreme Court Citizens United decision. Roberts and his band of right wingers said corporations are “people” and have the rights of individual citizens.
Roberts allowed a massive flow of dark corporate money to buy state governments in local elections where a little cash goes along way. This was part of a concerted strategy to pursue systematic Red Map gerrymandering. For example, Republicans needed only 48% of the vote to win both Houses of Congress in 2012. Furthermore, the GOP has acted to suppress much of the Voting Rights Act with even more willing help from the Roberts Supreme Court. Trump's critical electoral college win in three key states was aided and by The Roberts Court. enabled the extremist Tea Party financed by the Koch brothers and their corporate brethren to corrupt our entire governmental system.
Mr. Roberts has done more to destroy democracy than any one could have ever imagined. Our democracy is at great as long as Citizen United remains the law. We continue to pay the price for Robert's rejection of the fundamentals of government by the people for the people.
5
Roberts partisan? What's wrong in an election year declaring that an individual has the right to open and concealed carry and every state must adhere to this. What's wrong with saying that states can outlaw abortions and even contraceptives they unscientifically deem abortifacients. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will be high fiving as Trump takes credit for such a crazed group of justices. Maybe just maybe that grinning and posturing will fade when the Judiciary Act of 2021 replaces the 1869 one that came up with the magic number 9.
3
One argument among Conservatives is to interpret the literal words of the law without considering the legislators intent, nor the long term effects on the society. This is not what the Constitution says. The Preamble says the Constitution was established "in Order to create a more perfect Union". How can this be done without considering how the law affects the society at large.
How can "Citizen's United" be the correct decision when any rational person can see the destructive results. The same with gerrymandering, regardless of how it is done? How is rampant gun violence "insure domestic Tranquility"? I get the Conservative definitions of this, but it has nothing to do with the Real World.
The SCOTUS has nothing to do with defending the laws of this nation, nor the Constitution, which they consider just a piece of paper.
3
What would the author's criteria to label Roberts "un-partisan?" Does anyone on the court meet that said criteria.
3
When a vacancy arises on the Supreme Court the proposed candidate is the choice of the sitting President and by extension the Party the President represents. In every sense it is a partisan selection that works to insure that a particular ideological mindset will have voice on the bench of the Supreme Court. The significance of this positioning is aggrandized by the fact that once appointed to the Court the Justice has a lifetime position. The consequences of this type of operational template are all too obvious. It has given us what we have today. Nine jurists sitting on the highest court of the land with a majority whose appointment coincided with conservative/right wing administrations. Giving America what's commonly referred to as a "packed" Court calibrated to facilitate decisions accommodating partisan politics. A methodology that ill serves the country.
2
The one thing Roberts and the rest of us should worry about is the Court confusing the functions of the legislative branch and the judicial branch. They are not the same.
If you want changes, tell you legislators to pass laws and learn to work with each other, including the Executive branch.
To protect our rights we have the Courts. All else folly is lawless and dragging us down to where we would not go.
2
A more serious problem is the life appointment of Supreme Court justices. Because of partisanship, which is an obvious but ignored taboo in judicial matters, this condition adds desperation to elections. As if elections are not desperate enough already.
But between partisan politics (packing the court) and the life appointment it becomes a primary impetus to be in office when a vacancy occurs. This should not be a consideration, much less a motive, for being elected president.
The power invested in our Supreme Court is not something to be bought or used by anyone or any group. Yet it is. Where is the balance of power when all three branches of our government contrive for unilateral rule?
2
The Founders told us how to interpret the Constitution in the Preamble. I want to know from conservatives, how their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, "insure domestic tranquility". How does gerrymandering and voter suppression "establish justice" or "promote the general Welfare"?
I believe Liberal justices, "legislating from the bench" support policies that aim to do as the Preamble says. When conservatives say "legislating from the bench", it means liberals want all Americans to have equal treatment under the law, including non-Anglo Americans.
I believe Conservatives make up interpretations to stifle the goal to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity", especially to non-Anglo Americans.
4
No one hated the Supreme Court more than Franklin Roosevelt who dismissed them as "9 old men" standing in the way of his progressive New Deal reforms. When the Court started striking down his New Deal reforms as unconstitutional, Roosevelt tried to pack the Court with progressive judges he knew he could rely on. Long story short the plot to pack the Court was a miserable failure. Let's learn from FDR's mistake and not pack the Court.
3
This article uses the term "conservative" instead of "Republican". These decisions have very little to do with conservative principles. Republicans today are not conservatives. The Supreme Court majority, including Justice Roberts, are partisan Republicans and the term "Republican" should replace "conservative" in these discussions.
6
If you want to change the Supreme court there are two ways to proceed:
First, term limits and tying an appointment to an administration - so each term the President gets to appoint 2 justices who sit for 18 years.
Second, you could take the appointments away from politicians in some way. This is hard to do but an example can be found in the UK where Judges appoint Judges and act as a body separate from the political parties. Of course they are largely responsible for the paralysis that grips the UK over brexit so the system isn't without its flaws.
2
Indeed he should worry! What and how the Supreme Court comes down on the separation of powers issues that are clearly on their way to the court will and the starkest way possible determine if we have a meaningful constitution at all. If the court fails in this matter, then we have lost our country and Putin is the new head of state around here.
3
I lost my faith in our US Supreme Court after it basically said that they could not do anything about gerrymandering in North Carolina where a majority of voters voted Democrat but Republicans won 9 of 13 districts. That is preventing the will of the majority. That violates one person one vote.
And, it all started earlier when the US Supreme Court stopped upholding the Federal government's check on Southern states anti-racial equality laws.
Folks, we have a sick Republican party that long ago gave up democracy because they found the American people weren't buying it. Republicans have won through thievery and lies. They can't win on their ideas of more money for the rich, less healthcare for all, and military involvement anywhere and everywhere in the form a support for military/defense.
2
In response to many comments:
1-Court Stacking is the Republican plan to keep control of the country even when they're out of power. It's a bridge until they're back in. All they have to do is bring the right case at the right time.
2-To me, the 2d amendment is merely a practical solution to a logistical problem; How to quickly arm a militia spread all over the colonial U.S. ... You allow them to keep their arms and bear them only when activated. Militia is mentioned six times in the Constitution, it is funded by the Congress and run by the executive, it is clearly in the chain of command. There is NO individual right. If you ain't in the U.S. Militia, you can't keep a gun.
3-After 10 days of inactivity by the Senate, Obama should have commissioned Garland and sent him to work. The framers never envisioned "doing nothing" as an option for the Congress. I would eventually de-fund two seats and kickoff Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
4-The right's master plan is to gain 3/4 of the states and write any amendment they want. Prayer in the schools, guns everywhere, abortion nowhere, and electoral vote reapportionment to guarantee a Republican president forever. And there's nothing any U.S. court can do about it. Not even SCOTUS.
Brace thyselves.
3
I'd offer to the discussion that these days everyone is "as partisan as he can be."
Only the media surpass it. "They are far more partisan than they claim to be."
Forget the eyes of the public, Justice Roberts was selected to be partisan of the laws of the land and our Constitution which enables it.
The only partisan factor our Court should engage is what formed us: Liberal to address what keeps us free and conservative to protect ALL of us humankind.
All....
1
The Court is already pretty much not worthy of respect, packed with two sexual harassers, one of them confirmed so (not Kavanaugh).
The Court is no longer legitimate, Bush v. Gore and Citizens United and the Muslim Ban and all that...
It should be packed with more justices or limited to border disputes among States, it’s original mandate.
However, Trump might make us the favor of destroying it because eventually, likely in this impeachment and subpoenas, the Court will contravene the dictator and pay the consequences.
1
Mr. Justice Scalia's opinions were conservative consistent with his originalist views. He was intelligent and intellectually honest. Perhaps Roberts, over time, can rise to Scalia's level of ability. Early indications are that Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are ideologues who have quite a bit of intellectual and character growth to become Justices who can serve their obligations to the Court and the Country.
1
@jim90.1
Scalia twisted words and logic to come up with decisions that had nothing to do with the Constitution. But he did do it consistently.
2
The Supreme Court's composition demonstrates what happens when power is the goal and it is achieved by unjust means. Now, Chief Justice Roberts has a choice to make. If he and the 4 other male conservative justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, use that power to continue to make our country more dangerous because of guns, drag us backwards on LGBTX rights, and overrides the votes of the three women on the Court on abortion, I believe we will have a civil war. Trump threatens one if things don't go his way. I don't want one, but it may well be headed our way.
Unfortunately, given the choices the Court has made to entrench Republican control of Congress and the choices they made about which cases to hear this session, I worry mightily. All of this is happening at a time when I believe our system of checks and balances is hanging by a thread.
These are dark and dangerous times.
1
@kathyb: Jurisprudence strives for objectivity. This is impossible with judges who insist on holding unsubstantiated beliefs.
5
@kathyb The down-side to "gun control is genocide. In the 20th Century, "gun control" laws promoted eight genocides, in which some 50,000,000 - including millions of children - were murdered.
In Rwanda, 800,000 were murdered in 119 days (7 April - 19 July 1994).
Rwanda did not have Nazi-style murder facilities. Village-level murder squads - with machetes and nail-studded clubs - sought out Tutsis (the target ethnic group), and murdered them. Adult Rwandans' national identity cards stated the bearer's ethnicity.
Rwanda enacted a "gun control" law, Decree-Law No. 12/79, on 7 May 1979. It was published in the Journal Officiel (Official Journal), 1 June 1979, pp. 343-346, in French and Kinyarwanda. This law remains in force, as amended by Law No. 13/2000, 14 June 2000.
The Tutsis had been targeted in prior years, but could not get permits to acquire firearms, so were helpless when murder squads arrived. A "lucky" few, with cash handy, sometimes could pay a murderer to expend a bullet. Most were slashed and/or had limbs hacked-off and were left to bleed to death. Many, who took refuge in churches and schools, were incinerated there.
Rwanda's post-genocide rulers have learned nothing: they maintain the "gun control" regime that promoted the 1994 genocide.
In short, "gun control" seems attractive: a false promise of "safe streets". Behind "gun control's" dazzling façade is a nasty reality: mountains of corpses.
"Gun control" is a truly bad concept.
I agree with the authors, "don't be fooled." Roberts might disagree with Trump's court on less controversial issues to maintain a show of impartiality but I believe we are in for a 5 to 4 vote against issues that matter to women and moderate voters.
4
Maybe part of the problem is we keep sending hot-button political questions that are properly the domain of Congress (and the President) to the courts instead. We've almost given up lawmaking in the regular way. Why can't the regular system take up questions like abortion rights, or campaign financing, or even gay marriage? The courts are just supposed to be interpreting existing laws for specific situations. They've been stretched far beyond that, forcing them to become political animals.
2
Roberts is a Republican. He makes no pretense to be anything else. Roberts will toe the GOP line. I wouldn't expect anything else. The Supreme Court will become increasing active in rolling back progressive views.
7
Chief Justice John Roberts was the deciding vote cast in Citizens United and it is utterly unforgivable. Until Citizens United is reversed so there is a monetary ceiling on individual campaign contributions and no campaign monies from corporations or lobbyists...we have an unrecognizable "democracy" which the founders of this country never intended. Money as the arbiter of politics and elections was never what they had in mind, and was, in fact, one reason why they left Europe in the first place.
10
Aaron Belkin is director of Take Back the Court and a professor of political science. His unbiased opinion is welcome here. Science is the operative word. Statistics have been used so they must be accurate and true. Had an Las Vegas odds maker interpreted Supreme Court decisions it would have been of equal accuracy as what's conservative and what's moral are so clearly defined.
Maybe not, do Las Vegas odds maker still use a 2D models? While a Francisco State University professor utilizing the latest 3D modeling software can also calculate the exact amount of hysteria is applicable at a given moment.
I'm no statistical scientist but I predict the hysteria will be dialed up as the decisions are handed down.
1
If Dems are interested in bringing integrity back to the Supreme Court, they would expand the court to add one liberal - to counter the manner by which conservatives hijacked SCOTUS - plus add one centrist.
In time, a court with more centrists may help rebuild the reputational damage done by Roberts.
1
@Tiki Archambeau And how many presidents will it take to expand the court to 51 justices?
1
Once again an article essentially proving that in these polarized, non-communal times, everything becomes a Rorschach blot. Belkin and McElwee do not like the results of the Supreme Court's rulings and are apparently committed to framing those results in a preordained paradigm. The authors (as do most people) simply do not understand the judicial review function of the Supreme Court and the severe constraints it operates under to make legitimate in a democracy the power of an appointed body to negate the "will of the people" as expressed through their elected representatives.
Most people simply root for the Court to be a supra-legislative body that will produce desired political results. If it acts as such, it has no legitimacy in a republican democracy and, more to the practical point, it then has the power to reverse political policies you approve of that were enacted by Congress or an Administration.
3
The Chief Justice failed to defend the Judicial Branch when the Senate Majority Leader failed to hold hearings for Merrick Garland -- for no legitimate reason.
Whatever else one can say about John Roberts, he allows politics to interfere with the court's agenda.
9
As much as the article might be right about Roberts, and I’m concerned about that, I wonder about the study methods. It would be very hard for a precedent to be overturned without Roberts and of course he would join the conservative side. However, it doesn’t say much about whether he has also been successful in preventing precedents from being overturn.
The Democrats need to win the White House and Congress. Then they will be able to appoint four more justices to bring this court back in balance.
4
I will vote for any candidate who will voice a plan to make the court less biased. No Democrat trusts this court after the gradual extinction of abortion rights, anti labor decisions, the partial bock of the Obamacare, The ruling that corporations are people, the Gore Bush decision, etc. at this point it would be Buttigieg who has my vote.
1
One word: SCARY And voters who care about women's rights and humanity in our judicial system had better wake up. Gone are the common sense solutions offered by Sandra Day O'Conner, who even admitted to making a mistake in Bush v. Gore.
I wish I had at hand the list of egregious gifts to corporations of the Roberts Court that Senator Sherrod Brown listed during the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Roberts is a corporate Republican - a huge piece of the armor that protects America's obscenely wealthy.
3
"Citizens United" was the straw that broke this camel's back. The court's decision effectively put the U.S. government for sale to the highest bidder. Of course Roberts is partisan. I never had any doubt of that. But his role in selling out the government is far worse; it will be Roberts' shameful legacy.
3
I'd trade Robert's decision to decree my marriage valid in the states eyes with his decision on Citizens United any day.
23
@Derek Calibre That may be, but viewed from a broad societal perspective (and I speak here as an out bisexual man) Citizens United has caused far more damage than the benefit gained by the legalization of same-sex marriage.
2
@Derek Calibre I'm not sure how to read this Derek. Does that mean you'd willingly give up the validity of your marriage so as to undo Citizens United? I doubt if my daughter who is in the same marriage validity boat would agree with you and it seems too drastic a choice to me - to trade away private happiness in that way. But I do agree that Citizens United is absolutely awful.
@Derek Calibre
PERSONAL issues, not national ones. There is a nation that will lose all of its hard-fought rights if we don't protect them. Think more globally!
2
What if your reformed the court down to seven justices? Who would be the first two to go?
@Teddy Chesterfield, last in, first out.
2
The SCOTUS is nothing more than one of two rubber stamping institutions for the plutocracy. The lobbyists for the billionaire class pass off the law of the land to Mitch McConnell and company who hold the other rubber stamp. Trump is the circus sideshow diverting everyone's attention away from the heist.There's your democracy circa 2019.
6
If anyone thinks things are bad now wait until Donald Trump (if he's still president) selects Ruth Bader Ginsburg's conservative successor for her Supreme Court seat.
@sharon5101
agreed
1
Roberts, via Bush v. Gore, is directly responsible for the senseless death (murder) of tens of thousands of Iraq citizens and U.S. soldiers, and the continuing mayhem that exists in the Middle East today.
Roberts is directly responsible for Citizens United, which has striped our democracy of it’s integrity, and arguably paved the way for this current abomination of a President.
The list could go on.
Roberts apparently does not have the courage to stand up to the ultra right, but pretends to be a moderating voice of reason. He is a disingenuous, spineless rubber stamp for the Federalists Society that has hi jacked our judiciary. Quite possibly the very worst American for all times.
2
He was put in by business interests. He is buy-partisan.
2
Unhappy now? Can't wait for it to go to 7-2. 😅
1
As long as a near majority votes Republican while even a greater majority can't be bothered to educate itself politically and our press is of little utility as reflecting actuality is low on its priorities. Life has become a race for clicks, nothing else is as motivating.
The end is near.
These Republican chosen judges are partisan hacks. What is wrong with so-called Democrats that they cant see it?
1
Time to make the case that the GOP and the court are taking away the rights of Americans. People hate to have something taken away. And then point out that they are giving these rights to corporations and the 1%ers.
4
It is not Roberts court any more. It belongs to Trump.
2
I used to greatly revere the Supreme Court, but not anymore.
I wish I could respect the institution once again.
3
How many Democrats, including Chuck Schumer voted for this bunch of zealots? Despite reams of writings and decision to the contrary, all it took was some false humility and boilerplate blather about just being an umpire during their Senate hearings to secure their nomination. The Democrats played by an obsolete set of rules and once again proved themselves chumps.
1
Is there still any lingering doubt that GW Bush and Dick Cheney were a stain on democratic values ?
2
Conservative judges are not a scandal. The appointment process is a scandal. Republicans systematically blocked Obama, leaving vacancies that are being filled with a ramrod.
The result? A SCOTUS that does not represent the beliefs and values of the American people.
3
Roberts employs the strategy of a master tactician, which is to give with one hand (just a little) so you don't notice the magnitude of what his other hand is taking.
It's time someone called him out on this. Well done.
4
The U.S. Supreme Court is a Crown Jewel of American governance. Most residents of other countries would give much to have a Court that so promptly and clearly explains its positions.
As to "gun control", note that it is a concept alien to U.S. jurisprudence. In the U.S., police forces have no duty to protect the average person.
The U.S. Supreme Court so held in 1855 (South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. 296 (1855)).
In the modern words of a U.S. Appeals Court decision: "But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution.”(Bowers v. Devito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982)).
This is “good law”, i.e., this decision has not been over-turned. This decision binds only Federal Courts in the Seventh Circuit. But other Courts may cite to Bowers.
The bottom line: if we have no right to protection from the government, it follows that we are responsible for our own protection.
Even were there no Second Amendment civil right to be armed, note that in the 20th Century, "gun control" laws promoted eight genocides in which some 50,000,000 - including millions of children - were murdered.
Many - dazzled by "gun control's" false promose of "safe streets" - cannot see these mountains of corpses.
1
Color me convinced. But I'm also no longer a believer in this sham democracy anymore. I know there are two Americas; one is powerless and the other is blind.
They should be referred to as the Republican Supreme Court.
2
Is this what you call a preemptive strike?
1
What is it with the Times OpEd page and the Constitution these days? First an OpEd over the weekend suggesting that, to reduce hate crimes, the government should pressure social media to more aggressively censor content. And, today, a call for a future Democrat president to pack the Supreme Court. While the Constitution allows Congress to set the number of justices, FDRs court-packing attempt failed because Congress and the public saw it as a power grab to weaken the Judicial branch. What's next, an op-ed calling for internment camps to pre-emptively contain suspected White Nationalists?
3
We have had neatly a decade of liberal appointments by Obama to the federal bench which has brought us an array of bizarre rulings. Instead of recognizing the rights of a
US citizens, we have fractured them to address small questionable segments of society. Finally, sanity will be restored. We are born into this world with 2 anatomical choices but now we recognize a non existent third choice, non gender specific. The liberal fringe has forced its way to the forefront. Pick a bathroom and be done with it. Roe v Wade has not been overturned, there are multiple places you can still have your abortion performed. Harvard dies not discriminate against Asian Americans regardless of how evident it may be. The rights of illegal immigrations by liberal doctrine are more important than those of US citizens.
This is what Obama has brought to the table.
Thankfully, sanity id slowly being restored.
3
Republican "Base" -- yeah, that is a pretty accurate term for the whole lot. Including the high minded judges with the robes.
As long as Gorsuch occupies Garland’s stolen Supreme Court seat, the Supreme Court is illegitimate. Period.
6
The final nail in the coffin of the Supreme Court's reputation for fairness came in Bush -v- Gore. After that the dam had broken and abject partisan cynicism ruled. The odd bone was thrown in the direction of fairness, when money or power wasn't involved, like gay marriage or education issues, but ever since the 2000 decision, all pretense of ruling just on the law is a fairy tale.
Trump and his unbound lunacy is a symptom, not the cause of our current misery; so is the Supreme Court's blatant partisanship and that hysterical Kavanaugh man-child will further ruin society, just because he can. There is a schism in society that defies healing right now. I fear things will get worse before they get better.
When all is said and done - its time for Blue states to start planning for EXIT. Is there any benefit at all for the Blue states to be in a country with the confederate and red states? NO.
1
Blexit. I'm totally for it.
Chief Justice Roberts may have to preside over the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
1
The Democrats have earned this situation. With their contempt for flyover country, their belief that they can win elections without white working-class voters, their open borders belligerence and their close association with folks who think that a child should be able to chose his sexuality from among five or six genders, is it any wonder they can't win critical elections? And they might not win again in 2020. Can RBG hang on until 2025? Stay tuned.
2
Justice Ginsburg's health is what people should be worried about.
2
We have an illegitimate Supreme Court. That's what should be acknowledged.
3
In short, the Republican party of today, as represented by Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Court, McConnell at the Senate and Barr at Justice--this party stands for lawlessness.
2
The Supreme Court is only partisan because the liberals aren't in charge. Who's kiddin' who?
4
Good. I hope he is.
Have to counter the most partisan justices the court has ever had in RBG and Kagan. Two judges that literally pronounce themselves as the most partisan justices the court has ever had and the New York Times completely ignores.
3
I would love to know which justices the author thinks are not partisan. Let me guess: RBG, Sotomayor, Breyer, etc
2
He is way right of center, and the public generally does not like him-especially women, minorities and the poor. He is part of the old WASP Old Boy elite that is clinging to dominance in this country, at all costs. To Roberts, women's rights and the gap between the rich and poor will be decided in favor of rich old, white men, like himself and trump. Maybe it's high time we should elect these thugs since they don't always reflect the will of the people. Roberts is a true Enemy of the Common People.
Pack the Court. Flip the Senate. Pack the Court.
2
And he is trying to fool people; his big lie "there is no Bush justice, no Obama justice". The first 14 FISA court justices were all Republican, Citizens United single-handedly gave corporations civil rights and legalized the Oligarchy, and the Federalist Society, of which Roberts was a member (and lied about it), is an open operation to pack the courts with right-wing, partisan justices.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8701009/ns/us_news-the_changing_court/t/roberts-silent-federalist-society/#.XZtKUHt7lPY
1
The SC has become a handmaiden to the fascist, theocratic, rapidly accelerating coup we are living through; I never really thought it could happen here, but it is. Personally, I will never get over the travesty that was the Kavanaugh confirmation process, or the theft of the Gorsuch seat, or Kennedy's decision to step down, amid serious qs about his ties to Deutsche Bank.
1
A. Beat the Republicans like dusty rugs at the polls.
B. Add three new seats to the Court.
C. Fill them with three left wing thirty year old's.
2
And? Nothing new about GOP types being wolf in sheep clothing as in Muller and Comey. The crux of thick-neck GOP types, e,g., Muller, the status quo matters and no one is gonna fix conservatives.
1
The ideas of just calling balls and strikes makes for a good quote but hardly evidence in the current court. Moscow Mitch and Paul Ryan sold their souls to the Trump devil in order to pack the court with ideologues along with the support of the Federalist society. All Justices are people who have opinions, that is human but don't pretend you respect precedent.
1
Yes, the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is in question. Appointing political hacks will do that.
1
Our country over the years has made discussion of the religion, of origin or practicing of political figures a forbidden subject. This is unfortunate, as to the degree that a religion is practiced, incorporated into the deep values of a jurist or legislator it affects their values and votes considerably
Six judges come from Catholic families, all but Sotomayor voting conservative. The vast majority of American Jews - the rest of jurists, are secularists, the religion of their ancestors being an historical artifact. This is not true of most Christian (or Muslim) sects or denominations.
The analysis of well- being of parents and infant when a fetus is unwanted, when evaluated against the word of God by those who believe in this as the dominant force in the universe is simply an "evil" to be ignored. There is no possible way to have a rational (or secular) discussion as the inculcated belief in a higher being who is active in the affairs of humanity is seen as the work of the anti-Christ or the devil.
While their actual belief in God's will is unknown, among elected official the appearance of such a belief resonates with the majority of Christians in our country. No Democratic official will ever take a stand on the insertion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, which was a breach of the first amendment proscription of an establishment of religion.
That clause was inserted in 1787 for a reason, one that is still vital for a democracy.
1
I agree that this is a right-wing court, but the authors' methodology leaves a lot to be desired. It's simplistic at best. There's a good argument to be made that the court has increasingly prioritized policy over law, and that Roberts is not a centrist. This article doesn't make it.
Supreme Court justices should be elected by the people and serve four year terms, just like everyone else. They should not be beholden to any political figure or party. Appointed lifetime positions for these people is just an absurd concept in a democratic system of government.
Even in our age of crass partisanship, it doesn't get much more crude than this hatchet job. The writers would have you believe that the court reaches its decisions entirely by reaching for its ideology -- decisions are not principled, they are either "conservative" or "liberal." With people publishing cartoons like this, no wonder we are at each other's throats.
The writers' view is definitely not shared by Justice Elena Kagan. Remember Justice Scalia who used to be vilified in much the same way the writers vilify Chief Justice Roberts today? Three years ago, at the dedication of the Antonin Scalia Law School, Kagan said Scalia's strict text-based approach to reading the law and interpreting the Constitution changed the way almost all judges and lawyers think, even if they don't share his ideology.
"In reading a statute, does anyone now decline to focus first on its text and context?" she said. "When addressing constitutional meaning, does anyone ignore the founders' commitments?"
Kagan further asked whether anyone questions the need to prevent judges from acting on their personal policy preferences. "If the answer is 'no' — and the answer is no, or mostly no — Justice Scalia deserves much of the credit," she said. "And that is a legacy worthy of a law school dedication."
3
The facts of the Trump presidency will inevitably come out. The Court's actions in the face of this level of corruption will not only determine Justice Roberts' legacy but the dignity and power of the Court itself. If seen as simply a partisan enabler of the Legislative and/or Executive branches, it will have lost much of the power it assumed for itself since Marbury v Madison. Quite a fall to lay at Roberts' feet.
1
The only legitimacy this court will regain is when it is expanded to 11 or more justices under a Democratic president. Until then, it's nothing but an extension of the Republican Party.
1
The Supreme Court is swimming in DARK MONEY thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, a radical masquerading as a Chief Justice "straight outta Central Casting". Roberts also opened the flood gates to foreign interference via dark money basically flipping off our Republic's Founders.
3
Roberts is an extreme right conservative and nothing else.
5
This is the culmination of a long term strategy by the Republicans to fill courts with right wingers
The Democrats were asleep at the wheel why this was happening
Bad for democracy and a disaster for women and minorities
4
Steven Pearlstein, in his book, "Can American Capitalism survive" noted: Regarding Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission Justice Anthony Kennedy penned what could well be the most naive, illinformed and foolish sentence in American Jurisprudence: This Court now concludes that [political] expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."
4
Who can trust SCOTUS full of trump's appointee...just another entity who doesn't any confidence of the american people...strictly partisan!
3
Why is it that left-wing writers who discuss the Court never acknowledge that the four left-wing justices almost always vote as a partisan bloc in favor of left-wing ideology?
3
The coup that started with Citizens United continues. Kavanaugh is the nail in the coffin in an Administration that is run like the Mafia. I send all things positive to Ms. Bader and pray for her continued wellness. It's our only hope.
2
Roberts, via Bush v. Gore, is directly responsible for the senseless death (murder) of tens of thousands of Iraq citizens and U.S. soldiers, and the continuing mayhem that exists in the Middle East today.
Roberts is directly responsible for Citizens United, which has striped our democracy of it’s integrity, and arguably paved the way for this current abomination of a President.
The list could go on.
Roberts apparently does not have the courage to stand up to the ultra right, but pretends to be a moderating voice of reason. He is a disingenuous, spineless rubber stamp for the Federalists Society that has hi jacked our judiciary. Quite possibly the very worst American for all times.
4
The Constitution said that the appointment of Supreme Court Judges should be confirmed with a 2/3rd majority of the Senate. In 1987 the Democrats did not vote in favor of Robert Bork which was their right, but the Republicans took it as the ultimate sin against them and democracy. It was actually democracy in action - that a number of Senators felt that his views were too far outside the mainstream and weren't comfortable to confirm him to the highest court in the land. Conservative sentiment made "bork" a verb - to attack or defeat (a nominee or candidate for public office) unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification. The Democratic Senators were exercising their rights but the Republicans used this moment to demonize the other party.
Now we have Mitch McConnell doing away with the filibuster for Supreme Court Justices and allowing Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to sit on the court with 50 and 54 votes respectively after denying the Constitutionally mandated hearing of Merrick Garland. The Courts are dysfunctional and partisan and the only way to rectify the situation is to remove all justices that did not get super-majorities and find justices that will pass that simple bar.
1
Roberts' partisanship was never more clear than in Shelby County v. Holder (2013). His majority opinion gutted the Voting Rights Act and opened the door to widespread voter suppression by the Republican Party.
2
I think you have confused the mere holding of political views with a case of partisanship. Eliminating political influence on the SCOTUS's freedom of thought and speech was a central concern of the Founders in creating lifetime appointments (during good behavior).
It is difficult to distinguish Trump's condemnation of an Hispanic judge from your statement, and even more difficult to rationalize how Sotomayor's defense of the value of a "wise Latina" on the Court could withstand your harsh scrutiny.
1
After we rid America of Trump at the 2020 polls, we need to train the impeachment cannon at the Federal Bench. Impeachment investigations should be done for every member of the Federal Judiciary approved during Trump's corrupt term. Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh would be good targets to start with.
3
@ridgeguy
And then, take a long hard look at the influence the Federalist Society exerts on American politics.
2
Supreme Court judges should serve terms of, say, 12 years, and then rotate back to the courts of appeals. The Constitution doesn't prohibit that, and it would alleviate the partisan pressure somewhat.
If, as you say, Roberts represents conservatives, then he is doing a fantastic job--except that is not his job. His job is to impartially arbitrate issues in accordance with precedent and law. We can set his historical bust right next to Chief Justice Roger Taney of Dred Scott fame.
1
To come down to calling one guy partisan because he voted with four of the other eight is a little strange because somebody else could call him partisan if he voted with the other four. There are liberals and conservatives. There might be more of one kind than of the other, but with an odd number of judges chances are that decisions, if split, will be on one side or the other.
1
The Medicaid expansion was to be paid for by the Federal government, i.e. a policy designed to affect citizens equally in all States. That it was turned down by some States and noting that these are the States with previous draconian laws denying Rights to people of color and restricting their Rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and who would have benefited most from an expansion of Medicaid, it can only be assumed that this was a racist decision.
Access to healthcare should be a universal right in the United States, as in other Democracies. This would include the right to preventive care. That the medical community has allowed political discrimination in healthcare based on race is part of the problem.
1
How can anyone think different about where Roberts interests really are after defending and promoting ‘Citizens United’, a law that brought feudalism (which gives almost royal power to corporations) onto the foreground.
1
It isn't just Roberts and his Conservative Judges partisanship that is dangerous, Citizens United being the extreme version of their decisions. How could 5 Supreme Court Justices make such a decision when they are also Religious men who actually thought that a Group of Corporations are people? To a man they have proven that they will never be fair in their decisions regarding Abortion. If they remember their beliefs, based on their religious beliefs, it is impossible to call a Corporation a person. Even a doctor, who knows a thing or two about how persons are formed, would argue a better case. not to mention parents.
If Citizens United isn't a partisan decision, I don't know what is.
Then onto the fact these five men have consistently interfered with what the Constitution clearly states and that is our Country has been founded on Separation of Church and State.
How can they swear an Oath to uphold the Constitution and then not uphold it?
Roberts chooses to pretend that the Court is not a partisan group when the proof clearly proves otherwise.
I don't trust this guy as far as I could throw him.
2
Well penned opinion which expressed views I have already considered.
It is literally "Roberts' court" in that not only does he reside over it from a historical standpoint, he can sway outcomes as well. This alone provides him with incredible powers equal to both Trump and McConnell.
I am still hopeful that his "legacy" will guide him in a righteous manner but am equally concerned that political calculations may in fact steer his vote and opinion.
Only time will tell how Chief Justice Roberts' embraces his legacy. And I may be hoping for more than his judgement will bear.
2
Given that Roberts voluntarily assumes the label [of a particularly aggressive] partisan political party, Roberts is -- by definition -- a partisan.
But, that is a personal flaw shared by many. It makes it tougher, but not impossible, to fulfill one's duty to perform a nonpartisan function.
As then Congresswoman Pelosi said back in 2005 when Roberts had said in his confirmation hearing that he viewed his job like an impartial umpire calling balls and strike, Pelosi said that may be true, but Roberts calls those balls and strikes from right field.
1
We should be troubled by the methodologies and motivated reasoning on display in this piece.
While it is relatively easy to show that the current court is deeply partisan -- being the result of a decades-long court-packing strategy with the Federalist Society at its center -- it is dangerous and troubling to mount a correction campaign from grounds that are themselves deeply partisan, and only seem to return the favor.
A small 'r' republican response may be apt in the present context. That is, it can even necessary in desperate times, to put your own partisans on the court, in response to the other side doing it, to balance out partisan powers.
But that invites a host of problems -- partisan motivated justices will not be aiming to "call balls and strikes" but will instead be more like referees whose decisions aim to favor their home teams. Disingenuous court decisions are sure to follow.
And that kind of our-team-promoting lens is on obvious display in the methodologies and judicial philosophy on display here.
Notice how almost all of the measures they use are based on whether the SC's decisions advance the cause of Dems or of Republicans.
Notice the absence of any analysis of the legal soundness of these opinions.
Notice that allowing states to opt-out of Medicaid expansion was based on sound anti-coercion principles, and had a 'bipartisan' court majority, but was labeled partisan.
Partisanship on the court is dangerous. It needs to be removed, not recommended.
When I read an article that accepts as true that “conservatives focus on the words while liberals any focus on results I want to scream? Conservatives aren’t really conserving anything. They are destroying years of progress on everything from human rights to workers’ right to organize. They only care what the big donors want. Look how quickly Justice Kenney resigned after Trump showed him the “light”. SCOTUS has been tarnished and demeaned by the GOP. More justices are just more plump appointments for partisans and the GOP is dying for it.
1
Is it taboo to note that the conservative justices are Roman Catholic and that most subscribe to some form of Natural Law theory that undermines our country's foundations in Positive Law?
It seems the only socially acceptable bigotry is anti-Catholicism.
1
Good to see Robert's voting record. Votes affect everyone. Lip service affects only the media which loves to report it and the not-so-bright folks who buy into it.
1
If Roberts wants Americans to believe his court is not politically biased he should have spoken out when McConnell obstructed Obama’s legitimate nomination to replace Scalia. The Roberts Court will go down in history as the beginning of the end of our democracy. They own the decisions being made right now that are destroying our country for the sake of enriching and empowering a few rich men.
2
Make no mistake -- all politicians are partisans. This trend started during the Washington Administration and shall continue until this Republic is no more. The only way you can get rid of Trump is to vote all Democrats in 2020. I don't like Democrats either. But for the time being, they are the lesser of 2 evils. And for this Republic to survive, we must get rid Trump.
1
There is one problem with the democrat plan to increase
the size of court. The supreme court could find that action it be unconstitutional.
1
The moral arc of the universe was swinging toward justice when Moscow Mitch derailed it by refusing to allow a vote for Merrick Garland. The conservative majority of the court is unnatural, infernally so. Adding a Justice, or two whose views represent the majority of the people would free that moral arc from hard right conservative chains. The damage must be repaired ASAP. Our democracy is deteriorating too rapidly to wait a generation or two.
1
Court packing is the worst idea proposed by progressives.
Because it will eviscerate our Constitutional order and trust in our institutions and deference to the courts as impartial arbiters of the rule of law. It would strike a dagger at the heart of our system of checks and balances--that's why it is so frightening.
If each election results in a newly packed court and a new review of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, we are on our way to banana republic status. Think a Trump type demagogue is dangerous now? Just wait if he rules as an unchecked dictator.
Win the election, appoint your new set of judges and you are free to rule pursuant to your brand new Constitution.
I have to ask why is the New York Times running so many pieces advocating Court packing? It's a radical idea.
And no, the Senate refusing to confirm Merrick Garland is not equivalent to Court packing. If anything, it most closely resembled a "pocket veto". Which is not unconstitutional or even unusual--it's just a tacit rejection.
2
For this reason alone, I still have resentment towards the holdouts for Bernie and Jill Stein voters in 2016. I'm working through it, but seriously folks--if you are waiting for the "perfect" candidate (that doesn't exist) you are dooming the entire country to authoritarianism. Vote smart and vote to win. And stop believing the Russians.
1
Regardless of whether Justice Roberts is partisan, and if so how much, it is not his court any more. That “honor” belongs to Kavanaugh and probably Gorsuch.
As political scientists Levitsky and Ziblatt point out, one clear criterion on the route to fascism is capturing the judiciary (specifically the highest court of the land). The country has passed that Rubicon more than a year ago.
I suspect Roberts is just fine with this development, because he no doubt supported it but managed to keep his hands clean.
Great article, but why no mention of Robert’s orchestration of Citizens United. Giving corporations rights of human citizens is a total perversion of the Constitution which, as its first words indicate, is designed of, by and for the people?
2
An important and insightful piece.
I’ve always found Mr. Roberts’ attempts to disguise the fact that he is a partisan hack, a political operative, an apparatchik, to be particularly loathsome.
I suppose one does have to admire his feral cunning, though, in working to achieve his goal of moving the country toward plutocratic/theocratic rule.
We can only hope that, over time, a court out of touch with the majority of Americans will not succeed.
4
Robbiesimon,
Justice John Roberts makes decisions on the court according to the constitution. You just do not like them. Many Americans do and feel he is one of the brightest on the bench. We are lucky to have such a Justice.
2
An analysis of his record a couple of years ago showed that in cases of people vs corporations he consistently sided with corporate interests, in cases of the government vs corporations he sided with corporations and in cases of people vs the government with the government. Otherwise, corporations are first, the government is second and the people can go pound sand.
Since every other institution in our country is held to the standard of inclusion and the principle of diversity, why not our highest court. They are not diverse by race, ethnicity, sex, veteran status, faith, or educational background. If you are an American of Asian ancestry, an agnostic, an evangelical, a Mormon, a military veteran, a member of a First Peoples Tribe there is not one member of the court that shares much with you. Less than 1/4 of Americans are Catholic, but 2/3rds of the highest court in our land are Catholic, while the roughly 20% of us who are non believers or non-practicing have nobody to represent us.
3
We need more than two party representation.
1
RGB is the last hope for sanity.
1
SCOTUS is a political instrument of government as long as Kavanaugh remains on it.
1
When the Democrats get the WH in 2020, one of their first duties should be packing the SCOTUS to (10) Justices to void the conservative lean currently present in the court.
1
Judge Roberts is concerned with hiw legacy when he says he is not partisan, but the proof is in his record whichis partisan all the way with just a few exceptions.
When you say, "Although Roe v. Wade is effectively dead in much of the country," do you mean that many fetuses are now alive who would otherwise be dead? Are you putting the life of Roe v Wade above that of human beings?
However, I do not think that a ban on abortion as some states seem to prefer is wise. It is far better to go back to the idea of "abortion by need" and "abortion in a timely manner."
This would allow early abortions at will and late abortions by dire necessity. But the idea that you can kill a healthy 24 week old fetus "just because you want to" is inhuman. Pro-choicers will protest that it happens rarely. But lots of things happen rarely and that does not make them "all right".
Let us move to a compromise on abortion and move on to more important issues.
America obsesses over trivial issues like a phone call to Zelesky or Johnson's talcum powder while millions of people do not have food or water, and the planet may be going down the tubes.
Let's not forget the court, on a 5-4 ruling, upholding Trump's Muslim ban. Despite lower court rulings using Trump's own words to overturn the ban, the court pretended that his unconstitutional premise, repeated over and over on the campaign trail, for the ban could not be discerned by the court.
Just like the Republicans are now claiming that his call, during a press conference on the White House lawn, urging Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden was not really what he meant...
3
Even more startling is the character failure of the right wing supreme's. Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh - all nasty types who were confirmed in spite of a record of partisanship and abuse. Roberts is a right wing boy scout compared to this menacing, creepy three.
Focus on removing Moscow Mitch from the Senate and take it back, and stop anymore CONServative gamesmanship with Our Democracy.
2
Only a modern Republican could defend the idea that something can be "stolen" and "legitimate" at the same time.
2
Brett M. Kavanaugh introduced himself to the nation the evening his Supreme Court nomination was announced at the White House.
Kavanaugh said, “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.”
More than the famously wonky Obama or Clinton? Really?
By reading this braggadocios, unvetted claim, Kavanaugh proved to Trump and McConnell that he would say anything they requested him to say, vetted or not, true or not. Kavanaugh and his clan are beyond partisan. They're shameless.
3
The “study” has cherrypicked cases to back up its premise. Justice Roberts is a decent human being with conservative values. That makes him a target for left leaning “experts” who won’t be happy under any circumstances other than Warren or Bernie as President and 9 Sotomayor clones on the Supreme Court.
2
We have the worst court since the early 20th century.
1st: Don't call them "conservatives", they are not. Judicial arrogance is not a conservative principle.
2nd: Money is not Free Speech. Justice Alito owes the US populous an apology for the russian money chaos that corrupted the 2016 presidential election.
3rd: A corporation can not have religious rights. It's a corporation, subject to State regulations, not a religious institute.
4th: A State Militia is not an individual.
5th: Truth matters. If one party is lying, then their respective arguments have limited merit.
6th. There were six separate secret meetings between Putin and Bone-Spur. Six.
Bone-Spur is a traitor.
2
Any court which tries to restrict voter rights and enlarge outside influence in the political process is fundamentally corrupt and corruptible. It doesn't matter whether its members call themselves Democrat or Republican.
1
And I’m wondering why a liberal activist group that wants to expand the Supreme Court in order to pack it with justices they like has any credibility whatsoever.
2
All of the white, male readers of the NYT who feel they are holding to a righteous line and not expanding the court, how would you come down on this topic, if you were black, and/or if you were female? Guess what, Chief Justice? I, like so many of us out there, scoff at what you say, simply because you're a white male. How can you know my experience? You can't, yet the white male supremacy that has lifted you and exalted all that you've done all of these years has conditioned you from knowing the reality that you aren't any more intelligent than anyone else. We must add justices, and they must be female and/or non-white. There is no way around it, mortals cannot understand the experiences of other mortals without having come close to living their experiences. The court should be expanded in number, to reflect our population increase the diversity of our country in gender and culture.
1
Justice Robert is a partisan conservative like he always was, his main concern is to not push it further to the point that democrats can pack the court with the population majority approval... which is going to happen if they dare to attack the rights of LGBT and let the states criminalize abortions.
legitimacy? um, that horse left the barn in 2000, justice roberts. let's assemble a search party decades later--it can't have gone far.....
1
The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy for me.
It is supposed to be independent of politics.
Clarence Thomas is a travesty. His appointment is beyond a travesty.
Gorsuch was appointed in a seat that should have been filled by Obama. What the Senate and McConnell did to Judge Garland (and the adding insult to injury statement that McConnell will not block a similar late term appointment by Trump if it came to pass) is a travesty. Gorsuch is therefore another travesty.
Kavanaugh is beyond a travesty. His appointment in any civilized nation with a working constitution would have been impossible. Our constitution is a joke for letting this man who should be behind bars for attempted rape (yes I believe his accusers) to sit on SCOTUS.
Three out of nine judges! That is sufficient to not take the institution seriously.
Plenty to worry about before we get to Judge Roberts.
3
It is so disappointing and dreadful to think our Supreme Court has judges that are not impartial, unbiased, neutral and unprejudiced that would ensure justice, and equitable, fair adjudication of all our country's issues and affairs!!!!
1
That’s been transparently obvious for years.
Geez!! Maybe the Democrats should start winning some presidential and senatorial elections. I realize that’s a boring, “unwoke” strategy, but it’s been successful in the past.
1
The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy for me.
It is supposed to be independent of politics.
Clarence Thomas is a travesty. His appointment is beyond a travesty.
Gorsuch was appointed in a seat that should have been filled by Obama. What the Senate and McConnell did to Judge Garland (and the adding insult to injury statement that McConnell will not block a similar late term appointment by Trump if it came to pass) is a travesty. Gorsuch is therefore another travesty.
Kavanaugh is beyond a travesty. His appointment in any civilized nation with a working constitution would have been impossible. Our constitution is a joke for letting this man who should be behind bars for attempted rape (yes I believe his accusers) to sit on SCOTUS.
Three out of nine judges! That is sufficient to not take the institution seriously.
Plenty to worry about before we get to Judge Roberts.
2
Chief Justice Roberts repealed the Voting Rights Act just when America needs it most.
Roberts justified dumping the Voting Rights Act by asserting that “America was now a post-racial” society.
Roberts is either ignorant of the country he lives in, or he supports racist actions, or he is ignorant of the law.
My thought is he is a blend of all of the above and is unworthy of serving on the U.S. Supreme Court because that threatens America’s core values.
3
If Justice Roberts wants to defend the legitimacy of the SCOTUS, he has plenty of opportunity to defend it.
I know he won’t though. Dude is going to do what Republicans do best: undermine the very institution he serves by voting to tear it down while going on TV and telling the world not to judge him by his actions but by his nice words.
And millions of people fall for that too. It’s really true. There’s a sucker born every minute.
3
Is it any surprise that views of the SCOTUS break down along partisan divides: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/07/partisan-gap-widens-in-views-of-the-supreme-court/ ?
It is impossible to escape our tribal battles in the face of our current circumstances--24 hour news cycles and siloed news media. We just yell at each other, at least for the most part.
We have no way out of this unless tolerance can be improved rather than denigrated. We will continue to see polar swings in the approval of the SCOTUS and other parts of the judiciary.
Believing that the Supreme Court is nonpartisan is like believing in the tooth fairy. What was that about Merrick Garland?
The Federalist Society is essentially a judicial version of the NRA: an anti-democratic political machine designed to protect powerful monied interests while masquerading as a trade group. It would be impossible to say which of the two has been more weaponized. It would be similarly impossible to say which has more thoroughly encysted itself like some awful parasitic worm in the bowels of our governing structures. Both groups hide under the mantle of patriotism while in fact working feverishly to undermine many of the unique institutions which have made America the great country that it is.
Forgetting that pestilence for a moment, it still amazes me that we've allowed the Senate under McConnell to so brazenly politicize the court and to do so by such egregious means.
We are already far down a very dark and dangerous road.
1
And on the other extreme there are the three women who are partisan in their way as well
Gee, given the bona fides of the authors of this piece, why would anyone expect them to contend anything different from that which they claim.
They are nothing but hacks pushing their own ideological solutions
1
Supreme Court nominations are filled with fear and loathing because of “penumbras.” Some justices can see them—or at least pretend to see them—while others don’t. In astrophysics the term denotes the space of partial illumination that surrounds the shadow of an eclipse, but in constitutional law it has come to refer to “implicit rights” found in the shadow of the Bill of Rights. Justice William O. Douglas explained that "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” (I’m not making this up.)
Some justices look at the Constitution and see only words on paper while other are mystics who claim to see penumbras emanating from the parchment. In reality, penumbras are devices for usurping the amendment process. The right to abortion is an example of a penumbra. The Constitution is mute on abortion—as it is on most issues—because it was legal in some states and illegal in others at the time the Constitution was written, so delegates at the Constitutional Convention opted to leave the matter to the states.
There is no need to argue over what the Constitution says or doesn’t say. Instead of allowing a small group of black-robed partisans to “interpret” the Constitution, we should be holding periodic constitutional conventions to clarify the Constitution and align it with changing circumstance.
@William Case In reality, the plain language of a law is far more important than any penumbra provided by an eclipse.
Legal interpretation has always relied upon discerning the meaning of that twilight zone between darkness and shadow. But light has always taken precedence over darkness.
@Sequel
The Constitution is just words on parchment. It says what it says simply and precisely. It does not contain hidden meanings, implications or penumbras. It is mute on most issues because most issues because most issues were left to that states.
Where is the Democratic version of the Federalist Society?
The Supreme Court has lost its legitimacy. The judges are too young when appointed so they are there too long. 2 have been accused of sexual harassment or rape. They deserve no respect and are totally partisan.
1
Let's not forget Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh have been credibly accused of sexual harassment and what amounts to assault and attempted rape.
There is no way women or any decent people can expect unbiased justice.
The Republican party stands for hatred and suppression of liberal or progressive ideas. No need to overthink it. That's why it's been so easy to make their evil intentions a reality.
2
Indeed he should worry! Who could respect a Court in which 22% of the justices are plausibly accused sexual predators?
2
Republican appointees to SCOTUS sometimes vote against the "conservative" outcome in a given case. Democratic appointees to SCOTUS never do. So the "partisan" scaremongering is a bit ridiculous.
Roberts is conservative but quite different from the purely ideological cats who share the bench with him. He is capable of evolving in time and changing his positions.
For both moderate and hard left Democrats who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party thanks you from the bottom of their heart for the next few decades. Your children are about to grow up with fewer rights than their parents in a country where white, male, straight Christians hold all the real power and corporations will decide all legislation.
3
It is interesting that people are still wondering about the legitimacy of the Supremes.
I lost any sense of the Supreme Court being legitimate and nonpartisan with the Bush v Gore case in 2000.
Down through the history of elections in Florida, there have been several contested elections. In all of these elections the elections officials and the Florida courts did recounts to determine a winner. But in Bush v Gore the U. S. Supreme Court stepped in, stopped the recounts and proceedings which were being conducted by Florida officials, and gave it to Bush. They in effect said "our man is ahead so lets stop counting." That is the only time in history that the Court had intervened in an election like this; and notice that they stated that the decision was not to be used as a precedent.
Some people argue that Bush would probably have won anyway. But the court should have let the recounts play out to determine a winner.
3
It has always been obvious to me and a huge portion of the country.
We are witnessing the deconstruction of America by devious means.
3
Don't blame Roberts. He represents conservatives and that is not evil. The country in general has moved to the right during my 70 plus years on this planet.
There is a big difference in being a conservative and supporting a corrupt and/or immoral President, whether he be Clinton or Trump. I have faith that Roberts will do the right thing for the country regarding issues relating Donald Trump. Trump is neither conservative or liberal. He is simply immoral and morals matter.
79
@sbanicki the country hasn't moved to the Right as a nation. The politics have moved to the Right, but if you ask most Americans are you in favor of social security or medicare and medicaid. Then followup with questions about having better infrastructure and having the rich pay higher taxes. If you frame the question properly most Americans are fairly liberal on economic issues. It's only when you speak of social issues such as gays and should women have equal rights that's when people take a conservative view on those issues. If we focused on economic issues people tend to be far left of center than what corporate media will expose.
The Overton window has shifted so much to the right that we are losing what it means to be sane and going to fascist territory with our country's conservative party. The liberal party has effectively become a conservative party with some liberals associated with it.
Hopefully we can return to a FDR style form of American liberalism where the leftwing is restored and conservatism shrinks it's influence over the corporate media who often favor an all sides are bad view which distorts which faction is demonstrably worse.
61
@sbanicki Respectfully, nothing you said makes sense. "Roberts represents conservatives". A judge should not "represent" - he should not be partisan. The country has not moved to the right. In fact, Americans are largely socially liberal and increasingly fiscally liberal as they realize the hoax of Republican trickle down policies.
66
@sbanicki
Claiming false equivalency between Clinton and Trump cuts no ice. Trump is by far the worst president America has ever had, bar none.
77
America has had conservative courts before (Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the Dred Scott decision ruled in 1856 that the Bill of Rights did not protect freed slaves - how'd that work out?). Most likely with the stolen seat, Gorsuch, which should forever be referred to as the stolen seat and then Kavanagh on the bench because of the lopsided way Senators are elected (two from every state even though some twenty states populations combined would not match the populations of California and New York so those states get forty Senators while New York and California get four), America will see some of the gains achieved in the last forty years reversed (Roe V, Wade in particular), but what goes around comes around...no Republican president with a Democratic majority in the Senate gets a hearing for his/(her -really) nominee in the year leading up to a Presidential election...new process established by Moscow Mitch...so see you on the other side.
1
The Republic, if we can keep it, is being severely tested. The Supreme Court will be severely tested when Trump issues reach it -- and they should reach it quickly. Let's see what happens when he appeals the tax release case that he just lost. That is certainly a case that should go to the high court.
2
Both sides can agree they don't want lifetime partisan appointments from the other side. We should introduce term limits to the SCOTUS as well as the legislature. SCOTUS should be slightly longer than the 8 years, 12-20.
4
Being able to accurately see “self,” is the first pre-requisite.
Test our judges before appointment.
Of course they have bias; one major support for grilling by Congress. But leave the likes of McConnell who Played “enemy from within” with our Democracy with his Garland blocking obstruction of government.
We must realize good judgment depends on the human mind and physical brain. Past trauma, self-awareness, ethics based on a dedication to universal compassion and not just love of one’s group. Maturity.
Do we test our judges? Mental health? Ability to handle Bias?
How do they handle the Bias that absolutely must be admitted to and must be acknowledged? (Basic Conflict Resolution skills.)
The main premise of this article isn't about Chief Justice Roberts at all. It's an attack on the conservative legal philosophy that the current 5-4 split tends to favor, which, clearly is at odds with the writers own political and social beliefs.
This attack on Justice Roberts is emblematic of the current frustration on the left which is more and more often manifesting into a paradigm in which institutions and laws that aren't viewed as "in-line" or "sympathetic" to liberal views are inherently broken and in need of fundamental change. That's why so many people on the left want to abolish the Electoral College or add seats to the Supreme Court or expand the House of Representatives - because those institutions haven't worked in the way they want them to.
This is dangerous because it solidifies the idea that our political, legislative and judicial institutions are either fully "broken" or "working" based on the outcomes they produce vis-a-vis individual citizen's points of view. It also ignores the historical truth that these institutions exist as a pendulum and the social and political forces that change them over time are self correcting.
5
Moscow Mitch stoke a seat from Obama.
That was cheating.
Regardless of my political affiliation I hate cheaters.
Roberts is a political hack but he tries to use PR to change perceptions.
1
Too bad. I too had a favorable view of Justice Roberts because of the ACA decision. I did not know it was what allowed states to roll back Medicaid expansion. BTW, you mentioned Justice Thomas. His appointment by GHW Bush was highly cynical. But it proved one thing: The color of one’s skin has nothing to do with the content of his character. I do hope the court, during this conservative period, abolishes affirmative action.
1
Term limits must be a part of the changes in the Supreme Court. When the Framers wrote the Constitution, there wasn't a specter of 30-40 year terms. We put term limits to limit the power of the executive. We need to do the same with Congress and all Federal Judges.
4
@Paul Bonner Why not subject every ruling to a popular referendum within a 60-day period? If we're going to abandon freedom from political interference as a desired characteristic of judges, then perhaps we should go Full Idiocracy?
@Sequel It is because we are all subject to political perspectives that limits must be placed on influence.
If we are going to have a Supreme Court that serves the country as a whole, we need to teach government in our schools to confront the work that has been done to demean our democratic government. When you look at the Republican senators who are defending Trump, you do not see people who represent courage and truth. We need to develop respect for our government so that the people who represent us are of strong character and who represent our diverse population not the religious principles of a particular segment of our society.
3
@Jane Did it ever occur to you that voters might have religious principles? Which Democrat represents courage and truth? Certainly not Schiffless and Nadler.
1
Judge Roberts may be considered partisan but I do give him credit for saving the Affordable Care Act and expects he will do the same the next time the court has to make another decision about its existence. But, I am not happy what he did to Al Gore who should have been president, not Bush.
3
John Roberts was not on the Court when Bush v Gore was decided.
2
@Mary Ann You are correct. He was nominated to the court in 2003. My error.
I don't see packing the court as a way to "fix" anything. It would just lead to constant renovations as the bench gets bigger each time the Administration changes hands.
Stopping some of this partisanship would be better - very difficult given the Senate's inability to prevent themselves from setting their own rules in the worst way.
If I could insert one change in the Constitution, I'd requre the Senate vote on every Supreme Court nominee within a short timeframe after the nomination is made. (yes, wishful thinking, but not as reckless as endorsing court packing, which would just spiral out of control).
But if the "Take Back the Court" people want to discuss changing the makeup of the Court, perhaps they should find a way to create a long-term grooming program similar to the very successful one the partisans on the right have created.
2
The biggest problem we have is that Congress has delegated a lot of law making to the courts instead of doing their jobs. For example, they could EXPLICITLY add LGBTQ people to Title VII rather than leaving it open to a court's interpretation which would make the current case moot. The fact that Donald Trump has gotten away with so much illegal and unethical behavior is proof that Congress are cowardly. What is the function of Congress if not to make laws (other than turning public servants making less than $200K a year into multimillionaires, I mean).
1
Exactly. Almost 50 years has elapsed and few states or the federal government enshrined Roe v Wade into statutory law.
The labeling of Roberts as an extreme right wing justice is correct of course.
But the same can obviously be said of the Justices I support. Expanding the size of the court is another step towards any hope of surviving this particularly dangerous time in our Republic.
Do these conservative decisions hurt real people? Yes, of course. Fortunately a remedy exists in the form of discourse and elections.
The way to have less conservative decisions is to win elections. Period. That's how voters influence the courts. If we assume our legal beliefs are correct than Conservative overreach in recent decisions will be deeply unpopular leading to political realignment.
If that fails to happen it means our political beliefs aren't held by enough people.
Democracy means tolerating being on the losing side even when things are bad.
Advocating packing the court is catastrophically misguided. You've got to convince people you should be picking judges. There's simply no other way.
This is easily demonstrated when we imagine a court WE like.
I'm all for a rational discussion surrounding making appointments not be for life. But it'd need to be broadly acceptable to all Americans.
I remain shocked people fail to realize how destructive this impulse is. How undemocratic. You don't take your ball and go home. You craft better arguments and win elections.
2
@Brent: These judges are revanchists, not conservatives. Behold the ruins of the English Language in their wake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revanchism
Records are made to be broken. That's why Trump pushed Kavanaugh through to the SC. He will without doubt be a record breaker of partisanship and proud of it. To the detriment of the constitution.
1
Beer Kavanaugh is a sorry excuse for a court justice.
His testimony was despicable. I like beer. I like beer.
Supreme Court judges are political appointees. They are as partisan as they can get. The Supreme Court judges should be elected officials or confirmed by two thirds majority in the senate. Then, there will be faith in Supreme Court decisions.
@Kodali They are confirmed by the Senate.
I think that the writers unfairly conflate judicial philosophy and partisanship when it comes to Chief Justice Roberts. I agree that he has changed the Court dramatically, and I argued as such even back when he upheld the ACA (because of what I saw as wholesale disregard of decades of commerce clause precedent). But I still believe that his allegiance to the Court and its role under the Constitution is genuine, and I still believe, especially in the age of President Trump, that there is a critical distinction between political philosophy and simple partisanship. Glass half full analysis from an old lefty for what it's worth.
78
@Bruce Levine
there is a critical distinction between political philosophy and simple partisanship.
Not many these days seem competent to recognize the distinction. I don't really have sufficient basis to reach a conclusion about Justice Roberts... but, thanks for making me feel less like the lone wolf that I so often am.
6
@Bruce Levine
Kindly explain the Voting Rights case. I can find no reason or rationale to overturn the 100-0 vote of the Senate re-affirming the law.
24
@Bruce Levine
I can only hope you are right. Sometime in the next few months I think the impeachment inquiry or the Senate trial will put Roberts to the test. Is Congress co-equal or not? Pretty simple and basic question.
9
There's no question that the SC is now an illegitimate body that needs reworking. Despite the show of amity (mostly by the liberal judges towards Kavanaugh and Gorsuch -- the hard-to-swallow, asterisk judges) we the people don't buy it. And it was clear that Roberts tries a few headfakes to keep the court from wearing its Illegitimate label. The SC, besides not representing the country and the majority of the populace, besides not respecting precedence, is now seen not as an independent and equal body of government but as an extension of a stolen White House, and part of the by hook-or-crook strategy of the GOP to hang onto power.
4
@Andy So if the SOTUS is an illegitimate body, as you say is beyond question, can we ignore all the recent opinions, or just the ones you don't like? I'm confident that their decisions will be given full faith and credit. There's work to be done, but the legitimacy of the court is not in question.
1
The vast, vast majority of decisions by this court are NOT 5-4 decisions.
A good number of those 5-4 decisions do not show any consistency among the justices voting.
Partisans ( particularly ones who are not legal scholars, like these authors) critiquing court decisions have a record of their own bias when attempting to interpret constitutional scholarship. No surprise there. Interpreting the constitution has never been harder, I’d leave that critical job assessment to those who are have no bias. Hard to find, I imagine.
2
Of course he is. As are Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh. Not sure about Thomas but the rest were all part of the Fed Soc plan to stuff our courts for generations to come. & we have to hand it to them, the strategy, decades in the making, has been brilliant (for right wingers).
Something seriously wrong when Presidents w a minority of the popular vote get to appoint men (yes, all men) who Lord it over ya for decades.
The Rs her this & that’s why they held their noses and voted for Trump. The rest stood on principle & votes for Bernie, Jill Stein etc.
6
Ivy League law schools actually run our country because its graduates make up The Supreme Court. Did the Framers envision that graduates of two law schools would be the final arbitrators of our lives? I think the last great Supreme Court was The Warren Court. Warren didn't attend The current feeder law schools that stack the court today.
6
Ivy Leaguer here- what’s wrong, *specifically,* with a rigorous education?
They teach us, for example, to defend our hypotheses.
3
@Bohemian Sarah
Nothing but why not be more inclusive? Does the Ivy League have a lock on intelligence and jurisprudence?
Probably that they've become the breeding ground of a modern American nobility class? Also the fatuous belief they're the only "rigorous" education available thereby meaning you can't be properly educated for less than several hundred thousand dollars.
I take your points seriously, judiciously and thus worry more about the tilt to the right. Mitch McConnell fits the picture of one whose actions were crucial in really tilting the ship of state to the right w/the refusal to hear Merrick Garland, much less vote him in. After that, two on the right, the fiery Kavanaugh and the Gorsuch fellow follow Alito and Thomas into the firmly 19th century rulings of Scalia et al. I find the rights of women to choose challenged as they are extremely troubling, as well as voting rights and environmental protections ripped away. Precedent can become granite and the country has not moved ahead without busting some rock.
1
It is not accurate to say that the liberal court was as politically partisan. The parties were in fact split in the fifties and sixties. Some of the most staunch anti-civil rights politicians were southern Democrats. The liberal court therefore not an arm of either political party. That is the difference. Bush v. Gore crystallizes this difference. It was anti-states rights, in many ways an anti-conservative decision, but it definitely favored one party. Everything else the conservative majority on the court supports and does now supports the goals of the Republican party period.
That is a dangerous difference. If we sit back and let them have their way this will not be a democracy or even, as the Republicans contend, a Democratic Republic. It will be rule by the minority; wealthy and white.
The fact that they can't win in a fair democratic process doesn't change the fact that they still want to win, no matter what.
3
This article doesn't really say anything about why the court may be becoming more "partisan", all it does is tally votes that conservatives like versus votes that liberals like. Conservatives like rulings that limit abortion rights, for example, and liberals don't, but that doesn't mean a vote to do so is cast solely to "own the libs". Liberals and conservatives do have legitimate differences in their readings of the law, though with some of the ludicrous arguments being advanced by Rudy Guiliani of late you may not think so.
If the court really is partisan, what we should worry about is the issue of executive power when that issue inevitably comes before the court--in view of the power abusing executive we have now. We should worry in particular that Justice Kavanaugh, who in his role as assistant to Ken Starr was willing to go after Bill Clinton with everything he had, now feels that a president can refuse to surrender pretty much anything he wants in an impeachment inquiry under "executive privilege". But the article gives no hint of whether the authors feel that is the case.
3
Suppose that the Democratic Party comes out of the 2020 elections able to expand the size of the Supreme Court. The next time the Republican Party is in a position to do so (and they or some successor party will be, eventually), they'll either expand the court more or reduce it, finding a way to take out justices appointed by Democrats. And so on...This particular civil war by other means is best not started, however much we may be upset by the decisions of the Supreme Court as it currently stands.
Do about it?
Our party has no one to blame but ourselves.
We do not pay attention...we play for the short term instead of the long.
And we strive for policy perfection in our candidates.
The fallout between Clinton and Sanders was responsible for her losing the election she should have won easily.
Sure, HRC was a flawed candidate but we as a party should have voted uniformly for her given the threat that Trump presented. Too many people did not got to the polls and vote because they were too alienated by the nomination fight. I would have voted for either!
Politics is a profession. You don't have the power to change things unless you get elected.
We are bitterly learning that lesson right now!
5
I wonder if having more judges on the Supreme Court and having it function more like the appellate level might not be better.
Expand the court to 15 or 18 judges, but only hear cases with 7, randomly chosen after a case is placed on the docket.
Inserting the random assignment might create some caution in accepting cases, as you couldn't guarantee you'd hear the case.
5
I'm a lawyer and I too have lost faith in the current SC. I have no doubt it will let Trump get away with whatever he wants to get away with, including canceling the 2020 elections due to some claimed "national emergency." Expect it to happen. The corrupt GOP members will do whatever it takes to nullify our right to choose our government and to keep the corrupt GOP in power.
18
Thank you! Anyone who continues to believe that Judge Roberts is going to be voice of moderation in a court dominated by a right wing agenda is in for a painful awakening. What must be changed is note the size of the Supreme Court in terms of the number of judges, but very importantly who decides when a new judge may be appointed. This tantamount task cannot be left on the hands of the speaker of the Senate; the situation has become a farce since judge Garland was denied hearing for nomination, strictly on partisan, ideological grounds.
7
The fact that Chief Justice Roberts leans to the right is hardly surprising news.
What is disconcerting is the fear mongering this article engenders in an effort to rile up a support for court packing. The references to a "dangerous lurch rightward" while most democrats support Roberts tells me as much.
I'm not a right leaning extremist, but I think both Roberts and Kavanaugh were qualified to be on the bench.
2
The Democrats and liberals were fine with the Supreme Court before President Trump nominated Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. The justices received praise and admiration for their decisions. There was no partisanship according to them. It did not matter that many cases were decided in a liberal fashion. There were no criticisms whatsoever from any of the progressives.
Now that the Supreme Court has begun to swing in the opposite direction the liberals are up in arms. They are hurling all sorts of negatives towards those on the court who disagree with their liberal agenda. The people voted for President Trump because he promised he would put some conservatives on the bench and balance the court. He kept his word and has not disappointed. I only hope he has an opportunity to appoint another conservative who will guarantee that our country does not swing any farther left. I think most Americans would agree.
Also, Justice John Roberts will decide future cases in a fair and honest manner. He will vote according to the constitution as the founding fathers had intended. He is a man of integrity and honor.
2
- The people voted for Hilary Clinton - flawed candidate that she was - by three million votes.
- Most Americans wouldn’t agree that we need another reactionary on the court.
1
"But none of this will matter unless Democrats acknowledge that the chief justice is the extreme, right-wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority, which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party."
I welcome this acknowledgement. It is WAY past time.
7
Improving the nation's laws and methods can be as effective as changing the Court.
For example, we could improve the libal legalities, to the point where we demand and obtain more honesty in broadcast media.
Specifically, if we retired the shock/jock radio outlets that bleed political lies & conspiracies into the public, we could expect increased trust & integrity to flow into all our processes (elections).
2
@Feldman quote: if we retired the shock/jock radio outlets that bleed political lies & conspiracies into the public, we could expect increased trust & integrity to flow into all our processes (elections).
Although it would be great to think that your idea would work, it would be akin to recinding the 1st amendment.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and right to petition.
Retiring shock/jock radio outlets that bleed political lies & conspiracies into the public would probably backfire. It would have to be done by law. What law would be proposed to stop a news outlet albeit a shadowy one?
@Feldman 'libel', not libal. sorry.
1
@CC NH Right -- by changing (and enforcing) the libel laws, etc. As stated above. As the article (I think this one, if not, Howard Zinn does) points out the 1st A. only protects speech you make. Not the errors you make in it. There are penalties for defamation, threats, etc. In the current case, we need to make it clear those rules also pertain to presidents.
1
This may seem like a ludicrous idea, but probably no worse than what we have now: a dedicated, narrowly-focused Artificial Intelligence that can search and compare (reason?) the entirety of federal cases reaching back to the inception of the U.S. court system. The human members of the court would have the final decision—for now, but at least there would be an extremely thorough alternative argument that the public would have access to for comparison.
Could the A.I. have, or form, its own bias? Sure, but it could be “programmed” or “trained” out over time, and would—again—be no worse than what we have now.
This court term will show all sorts of groups who heretofore have been shielded from the courts biases and prejudices what minorities and those on society’s margins know well - that our justice system is hardly just. I just can’t figure exactly what this elite group of white male judges and lawyers want from the rest of us....
4
"Democrats have a positive view of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has expressed regard for precedent."
The Chief Justice of our Supreme Court expresses regard for the founding principle of our judicial system. What a revelation; what a time to be alive.
Needless to say, expanding the court is a game both sides can play. There has to be a limit on the number of judges and nine is as good a number as any.
2
I disagree. We now have a nine-member Court with four liberal and moderate Justices and a hard-right wing composed of four Justices (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh (whom, as a Democrat, and by his own words, I could never trust to afford me equal justice), and a Judge occupying the stolen seat of Merrick Garland. Once the theft is redressed, the resulting number will be one as good as any.
3
15 is an even better number, especially when the new 6 are 30-year old progressives who love jogging.
When you fight to stuff the Supreme Court with conservative judges to the point that you unconstitutionally deprive a president's prerogative to nominate a patently moderate candidate, you cannot avoid the charge that what you seek is not justice but the pursuit of a partisan agenda. The Court inevitably loses its reputation and becomes a vehicle for social discord.
10
It is time to limit the terms of Justices. While this denies many hard-working justices the opportunity to work well beyond the lifespan of most voters, limiting the terms to age 70 or to a certain number of years is a reasonable action to keep SCOTUS in touch with the changes in society in the USA.
Should retired justices wish to work beyond the mandatory retirement age, there are many opportunities to do so.
Changing the number of justices from 9 to 11 or 13 would be a healing step to take as part of the recovery from Trump.
The majority of voters when polled with neutral questions by reputable polling organizations support limits on guns under the terms of the 2nd Amendment, support the right to individual women controlling their reproductive health with safe and legal abortion and question the amount of money Citizens United brought into election campaigns. Gerrymandering, voter suppression tactics, and outright lies during election campaigns have prevented honest election results in many states especially those of the former Confederacy.
3
The court is supposed to be representative of people's views. That in turn is supposed to be assured by the fact that the sitting US President is elected by the people and when a seat at the Supreme Court becomes available that President selects the new judge. We all know that because of Republicans' racism and pure bad faith that did not happen when Obama got his turn to select a new Supreme Court judge. So Republicans stole a seat and that gave them a conservative majority that does not represent the actual view of most Americans as has been demonstrated by surveys and polls time and time again and the fact that the Democrat's candidate got more than 3,000,000 more votes than the Republican candidate.
So we have a completely biased Supreme Court voting against the views and values of the majority of Americans and without any right to do so.
Yes, the next Democratic President must add at least one seat to the Supreme Court so that it actually represents the values and views of the US citizens. And to avoid such partisan, extremists to be nominated in the future, a new law to be enacted AFTER the new judge is confirmed: to clearly establish that the sitting President will nominate the replacement for a vacancy and the Senate will call for hearings and a vote within 40 days of the nomination, no recess, no excuses. The other thing: for confirmation the new judges in the future will need 75% of Senate votes. No agreement, no judge.
4
Court packing is always problematic from the point of view of constitutionalism. But here is the problem: the present USSC has been packed, starting with the sabotage of theGarland nomination. Are the Democratic proposals to pack, really about “unpacking”? It is hard to decide whether, how and when actions contrary to constitutionalism can play a role in strengthening it.
There is however a solution for the next Democratic president and Congress, if we are lucky enough to elect them. The underlying problem, our political structure of appointment must be changed first, and then applied for the first time for a one time expansion of theCourt. To avoid the need here for an anArticle v. Amendment, the new statutory rule would keep the roles of the president and the Senate, but require that the choice be made among say three candidates for each judgeship recommended by the Bar association, or perhaps a new assembly of constitutional lawyers. The new rule should be immediately followed, instead of the inclination to name our judges to compensate for theirs.
Pursuing a constitutional amendment on this issue could and perhaps should be pursued concurrently. It would be important to the constitutionalize by an Article v. Amendment the new number, along with the new, much less political structure of appointment.
Paradoxically, the SC can play its required role in the separation of powers if it is depoliticized. Our goal should not simply be a counter-politicization.
1
All the comments that are negative are from those who want a more Liberal Chief Justice and Supreme Court.
I feel that the Supreme Court needs to play a Middle game, not always left or right.
The Extreme Left and Right has left us in the middle underrepresented both in the Court and Congress.
2
They moved the goalposts on you. Our Left is more of a middle-leftish, from the perspective of global and historical alignments. Our Right shifted into Attila the Hun territory over the past 15 years or so, and since Trump we’re in a zone I don’t wish to name,
If I were you, I’d go with the liberals. At least they won’t choose corporations and autocracy over human rights, and force their choices on you. You’ll be freer to do your own thing.
trump wants to push everything to the supreme court because he believes he owns 5 votes there. Unfortunately, we do have trump judges.
2
Absolutely.
Justice Roberts is an extreme right wing conservative.
Here and there he might join the liberals but only to prevent the court from being viewed as a right wing conservative institution devoid of all logic and common sense.
But the damage has been done by Moscow Mitch and only with time the court will be able to move to the center.
6
I recently had a conversation with two lawyers who had argued an important case before the Supreme Court. Most of the lower courts and state courts had accepted the lawyers' argument but the Supreme Court rejected them. It was most assuredly a partisan decision.
We will now have another such case come up with today's ruling on Trump's tax return. If the Supreme Court again overturns all its lower courts decisions, the court will have a crisis of legitimacy, which will take its place with the post-Dred Scott court.
Watch out, Roberts.
6
If Trump is defeated (and I hope mightily that he is finally dispatched to the line of prosecutions and convictions that await him) I hope that the next president has the steel to add justices to the court (if the Senate is finally wrested from the people who are destroying our republic). That is the ONLY way to reverse the fallout of what is going to be the most terrifying SC term we have ever faced.
4
John Roberts never fooled me. I've always viewed him in the same way that this article portrays him, as a right wing defender of monied interests and enemy of democracy. I remember watching his confirmation hearings and not believing a word he said. Please Ms. Bader, stay alive.
6
The Democratic Party seems not to be able to play the long game.
We knew what was going to happen if there was a Republican President and Senate.
Now we have a majority conservative judiciary because people did not like a flawed candidate such as Ms. Clinton.
Policy is important but politics is a profession and our party should treat it has such.
Back Room? Machiavelli? Power Brokers? maybe but look where it has gotten us....
A President who does not believe the law applies to him. And his Senate syncophants enabling him.
10
If justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch can show through their rulings that they are noticeably less partisan than people believe they will be, then the court has a chance to regain or retain legitimacy. So far, it doesn't look good. If they remain ideologically driven, the court will continue to lose legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
This is as important as holding Trump accountable for his actions, and it is up to a pair of (apparently) right wing partisans, not "we the people". This current Supreme Court season will tell us a lot about the future of the country.
5
The Supreme Court has become a political pawn.
Kavanaugh has an extreme record of partisanship and pushing an ultra-conservative agenda. His demeanor during the hearings spoke volumes to Americans about what the court has been reduced to.
Clarence Thomas had 4 sexual harassment complaints against him before he was nominated. Was he really the best, brightest, the most fair? from from it, but Bush and the Republicans fought for him (even though it was unfairly vilifying the women and dividing the country) because he was a "sure" vote for their side.
Scalia hung out with Cheney and vehemently pushed ultra-conservative views and never dissented from it.
Then there is the mistake of deciding a US election. A case that the court should have never heard.
The days of the Supreme Court being unbiased and fair are long over. Now we have to live in fear of what damage will be done to the Constitution, women's rights and the Country.
18
They are all human, therefore are all partisan. The mythology that the Republicans have spun for years is that they are for less government, when in fact, they want to impose more and more on people’s lives. They are about control and allowing the moneyed class to have all the power. They are on the wrong side.
11
The size of the Supreme Court must be expanded. At present, it's dominated by right-wing extremists with its credibility as an institution hanging by a thread. The balance of the Supreme Court - were it to actually reflect the will of the American people- should currently be 8-1, not 5-4. Were it not for the illegitimate election of Bush in 2000, we would not have Roberts and Alito. Were it not for Mitch McConnell's anti-constitutional sabotage in 2016, we would not have Gorsuch. And if it were not for Trump's illegitimate election in 2016, we would not have Kavanaugh. The Republican party is extremist and anti-constitutional. They have worked for decades to twist and subvert the judicial branch at every level to wield outsized power, as their policies and viewpoints are deeply unpopular with the vast majority of the American people. The present situation is unacceptable, undemocratic, and tilted in the extreme toward the interests of corporate power and money, and general bigotry.
9
The wild card in all this is that the egregiousness of the right wing attack on so many aspects of our democracy will ignite such an electoral backlash that we will have a Democratically controlled legislature and Presidency after 2020 as well as taking back control of state legislatures and governorships. Those who have neglected to vote in the past, a shameful stain on our electorate, will come out in such droves that we the people will overcome the suppressive restrictions on voting put in place by the Repubs. Even foreign meddling can be neutered by big enough numbers of people who vote. Hopefully, the light at the end of the tunnel is not an onrushing train.
2
Trump is effectively in control of the Supreme Court, Senate,Department of Justice, State Department, White House, and DHS. He will harness them to keep him in office. Should he leave office,he will be subject to indictment. He will do everything from voter suppression to solicitation of foreign support to stave off indictment. It is very strange that a country that says "No man is above the law" gives credence to contradictory concepts such as executive privilege, immunity from prosecution while in office, soverign immunity, lese majeste, "if the president does it it's legal", and so on.
6
A Democrat President, House and Senate would make possible the impeachment of Supreme Court Justices. And after McConnell's unconscionable hijacking of the Court by his refusal even to acknowledge a Democrat president's nomination to the Court, I would no longer have any compunction about using raw political power to do the deed.
11
Supreme Court should have a say in selecting few probable candidates (to be sent to the President) for any vacant position among its ranks as a judge there. Political appointees, appointed by the President & majority party in Senate are bound to have political & other ideological (e.g. religious) bias. Only the degree would vary. Public perception about justice being served would also be viewed from such political & religious angle. In the process, quality of justice &, more importantly, the perception of justice among general public would be affected.
We know how even seemingly very clear texts in US constitution were interpreted by many Supreme Court judges in a very distorted way, altering the meaning of English language of the words.
Few good example would be meaning of 2nd amendment, "God", "religious freedom", secularism etc as the phrases/words like "In God we trust" (as our national motto, replacing a much better one- "E pluribus unum") and "under God" in pledge of allegiance were introduced in mid 1950s during cold war with ("Godless") communist Russia (ref- "Godless citizens in a Godly country").
Many of today's sociopolitically ultra polarizing issues like gun rights, abortion, climate change, education, etc. arose due to politicization of judiciary & growing influence of religion imposed by many/most politicians, mainly the Republicans (more since Christian fundamentalist President Reagan, in public policy & education (even higher education) in the country.
3
Of course a position piece written by founders of a group called Take Back the Court represents simply the flip side of the partisanship the authors complain of and can hardly be taken seriously. One the one hand, though, such a group shows that liberals have at least awakened to the reality that Courts are eminently political, even if the light bulb turned on forty years after conservatives have been vocal and organized on this issue. If Congress fulfilled its role in our system Courts would have far less power and we might be spared some of the absurd blood letting over the Supreme Court's composition.
7
Exactly. The fact is that whenever we look at ideologically divisive court cases (cases that center on the rights of minorities, immigrants, women accessing abortion, etc.) we see just as much ideological partisanship on the left side of the USSC as on the right. Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor are as consistent for their side as Justices Thomas and Alito for theirs. All of this handwringing by the left about losing an impartial USSC is hypocritical nonsense. They would not now call for packing the court or imposing a mandatory retirement age if they saw their side increasing in power within the USSC. As for the Republican Senate refusing to confirm Justice Garland, I think that the Senate should have put his nomination up for a vote, and I also think that the Senate would have been within its constitutional authority to have voted his nomination down along partisan lines. “Advise and Consent” does not mean rubber stamping whatever court nomination a Progressive President makes. The Democrats had every right to do the same to Robert Bork, and they did. If Progressives do not like where the USSC is headed on ideologically divisive issues, then they should focus on winning the White House and the Senate rather than trying to pack the court, to establish a mandatory retirement age, etc. If Progressives truly have the popular support for their side on these issues as they claim, then they should be able to compete in the system we already have.
2
Your column prompts more feelings of despair. We have a dishonest, cheating demagogue as president. Our congress is accomplishing nothing for our democracy, and now we learn that the SCOTUS is also partisan and will lead us to more division and rancor. It's a shame, when we need people to come together, our government is tearing us apart. Our society is suffering. There is no progress in health care, education, housing, immigration, infrastructure or gun safety because our government no longer works for the good of our society. What's the advantage of a divided government, when there are no "checks and balance"?
5
The People have a say in our future every four years throught elections. And they can decide through Congress what kind of laws they want and what Executive direction they want the Presidency to take.
But the so called Third Power is no loger the Third;
It is the First and most powerfull Power.
By abusing for partisan reasons this power, they, in fact decide our fate, eventhought they have not been elected.
The worse part of it is that, once nominated by a Partisan Party to which they are indebted and with which they share a political philosphy, they are "in" for life.
Worse even, if they have become Justices at a young age, their infkuence will last for decades, eventhough the People disagree with what is "their" policy and that of a Party no longer in place;
This should be changed. If we want to keep the Court in a relative state of independance the Justices nomination should no longer be dcidecd by a simple majority, but by qualified majority, for exemple 2/3. And the Senate should be obligated to vote on the nomination whithin a reasonable period of time, so as to avoid the scandalous refusal to submit the nomination of a Justice until "better" times.
Otherwise, there is no "balance" within the Powers
"which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party."
There is no "turning" about it. The court IS a partisan extension of the Republican Party. It is one of the many things that will have to be radically reworked if majority rule is to become effective in this country. The supreme court, the electoral college, the system of at least one representative per state (N. and S. Dakota could share, for example), hyper-jerrry-mandering. It's all got to be swept aside. It won't though.
We are heading in a period similar to Bismarckian rule of Germany.
1
Don't be fooled. These authors are as partisan as they come. Roberts is a conservative. You don't like it. Ok. Present a Democratic candidate who is electable...then you can get more liberal justices on the court when sitting justices retire. Take Back the Court is a joke and represents everything wrong with political discourse.
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@Keith Siegel I dunno they sound an awful lot more reasoned and analytical than the reply. And btw I think the premise is wrong -- the Court's critics want good decisions not 'liberal' ones. As the Constitution expects.
3
He's as corrupt as they come, just like most supposedly "religious" Republicrooks. I often wonder how guys like him sleep at night, until I remember that those without conscience sleep very well, thank you (except tRump who never sleeps.) These malefactors have it in mind to do as much harm to as many Americans as they possibly can, in service to their sick ideology, as well as their wealthy, treacherous, delinquent owners. I can only hope that the Democrats can win back our government and quickly make the repairs that will SERVE as many Americans, of every description, as possible, doing the most GOOD possible. You voters will never get that from the odious Republican Party. If you let this go, soon you might just as well live in China.
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Your methodology sounds flawed. If Robert joins the four conservative justices but is also joined by some liberal justices, you would count that as a “partisan” decision. He is a conservative justice; does that mean he’s partisan? The term is generally applied to party politics, not philosophy? But your study and your article sound very partisan.
5
"Justice John Roberts ... concern for the court’s legitimacy"?
SCOTUS started losing legitimacy when it installed Bush to the presidency that resulted in the Iraq war of choice calamity that enriched Halliburton and fossil fuel cronies beyond belief.
Legitimacy was further compromised when one SCOTUS justice choice was stolen from a legitimate popularly-elected-twice Democratic president.
SCOTUS was finally totally de-legitimized when an illegitimate, unindicted criminal and impeached (to be) POTUS elected by a tiny group of people in the Electoral College defying and disenfranchising the popular vote in spite of foreign attacks in collusion with conservatives, installed two flawed ideologues to the court - one an immature beer drinking sexual fiend.
Roberts will oversea a sham partisan Senate impeachment court ensuring "even-handedness" that no Republican strays from their ideological duties and sworn oath to their dear impeached leader.
Roberts doesn't worry about blocking a Democratic 2020 POTUS's agenda - that won't happen. Indeed, "predictably" this illegitimate SCOTUS will be instrumental in prolonging America's nightmare by re-installing a Republican in the 2020 elections, no doubt using Bush-Gore as "precedent."
3
I don't see how adding justices to SCOTUS makes any difference. We'll still have the same back-and-forth between various administrations who nominate either conservative or liberal justices. Even if there are 100 justices it could still be a 51/49 court, leaning one way or the other. Obviously, there would be more instances of crossover voting, but that pendulum swings both ways. As a liberal I don't like this court. But as an American I realize that things don't always go my way. Trying to change the system (add justices, eliminate the electoral college, etc.) is shortsighted. We mustn't fixate on our own time. The Warren and Berger Courts had a 33 year run that changed America forever, and Republicans took it on the chin. Nothing this court will do will have such an impact. We liberals have to take our lumps. That's America. Besides, we have far more pressing issues to deal with where Trumpism is concerned. U.S. Senators and Congressman are telling us on TV that what we've seen the President say wasn't what the President meant when he said China should investigate the Biden's. Corruption and gas-lighting are our real problems, not SCOTUS. And that's why we have elections.
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As a trump supporter, I applaud your honesty and courage.
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@Aurora Why on earth is any other time, especially yesteryear, more important that today?
BTW, every last one of the post-War II chief justices were Republicans. In fact there were only two Democrats in the 20th Century.
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@Aurora Well it depends. If the court is going to stay very partisan and conservative forever, at least by packing the court may give democrats the control at least for some time. I think this is the reason why Justice Robert is trying to move to a more nonpartisan position, to avoid that.
11
Chief Justice Roberts hopes to safeguard the Court against partisanship and in hopes of legitimacy to all Americans.
Whose legitimacy are we talking about?
In his confirmation he said that Roe v Wade was stare decisis, it is precedent and that's how he would decide...we will see what he does.
LGBT rights have already been legitimized. We will see what he does.
The Merrick Garland fiasco does not add legitmacy to the Chief Justice's claims.
The Court's decisions will have impact on the 2020 elections.
All of this could have been avoided, if Ms. Clinton had been elected, however, our party seems to believe in the principle of a circular firing squard first and electing candidates second.
To quote John Wilkes Booth after he as shot..."useless, useless."
1
Mitch McConnell killed whatever faith many Americans has in The Supreme Court. The ascension of Kavanaugh to the bench buried it.
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@Seldoc Agreed. Moscow Mitch has turned the Supreme Court into the Extreme Court. It's a defunct institution as far as I'm concerned.
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@Craig Very good point. Let's hope it can be resurrected and the be the way it used to be.
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@Seldoc I rarely donate to political campaigns, however I plan to donate to Amy McGrath's run against McConnell. He knows no shame and needs to go.
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"But none of this will matter unless Democrats acknowledge that the chief justice is the extreme, right-wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority, which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party."
Agreed - it's long past time that we eschew the received terminology of the right. Roberts, Alito, Gorusch, Kavanaugh and Thomas - they are NOT "conservative jurists." They are nothing less than radical, right-wing partisans who've been programmed to worship (and protect and further the interests of) dynastic and corporate wealth, white male hegemony, and Christo-fascists. And just like with Trump, unless they are checked - REALLY checked - they'll keep doing what all good robots do: their masters' bidding. It's nigh time for SCOTUS restructuring.
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I have a little message for the authors, in terms of "taking back" the Supreme Court. Message: The Court doesn't belong to any ideological faction. You cannot "take it back" because it never belonged to you. The Court belongs to the American people, and to the Constitution.
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@James Ribe: Many of us believe that Mitch McConnell has taken the Supreme Court, and that Neil Gorsuch is the result. While some people believe that Brett Kavanaugh is odious, at least he was appointed by a legitimate process. Gorsuch's seat was brazenly stolen from Obama.
1
This just in:
Important well-liked leader of from other party is secret mastermind extremist carefully plotting downfall of Democracy.
I think I've read this article before.
1
The authors refer to cases involving gun control but fail to focus on Heller, the decision magically finding a second amendment right to own guns not connected to the militia. No case is more partisan or contains more twisted and almost inane reasoning, particularly by the sainted Scalia. Anyone who doubts this should read that opinion at the SCOTUS website and then recall that Chief Justice Burger, appointed by Nixon, once declared that the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the American public was the belief that the second amendment contained such a right.
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@Rob The problem with that is that Americans owned guns for almost 200 years before the Constitution was written. The HAD the right to keep and bear arms. Who thinks that the purpose of the Bill of Rights was to take away rights that the people traditionally had?
Ludicrous. Roberts famously saved the ACA with the deciding vote preserving the program's cornerstore 'individual mandate', and thus saving Obamacare, in contrast with the other conservatives on the court. This is barely acknowledged in this article. And recall that there was massive backlash from the Right as a result.
For those concerned about 'stacking' the Supreme Court with conservatives, is stacking it with Liberals the correct thing to do?
3
The Theocratic Plutocracy/Oligarchy will rule this Nation for ages if the current GOP remains powerful.
A MINORITY Party buoyed by regressive, reactionary, racist, fascist, and non-secular evangelical forces.
It cleverly but despicably wins elections and owns narratives. So did the analogous European forces circa 1930.
Their technical tactics include redistricting, voter suppression, capturing/controlling propaganda apparatus, devaluing the truth of matters, etc..
Their political tactics include taking advantage of our more primal instincts: ego, fear, bigotry, tribalism, authoritarianism, etc..
Via propaganda they give tolerance, understanding, compassion, fair ethics, and human kinship a bad name.
Cleverly they fire-up their base TO VOTE while sowing apathy/cynicism by lies, distortions, sophistry in non-GOP voters so they do NOT VOTE.
Their NOT the LOYAL opposition ever.
But I ask this - what does the GOP oriented Conservatives really fear from a "liberal" SCOTUS?
The fact that a so called "liberal" court will take individual freedoms seriously?
Or that it defends social minorities from the prejudices of the majority?
Or that it defends a person's right to modern autonomy over body/expression?
Or that it does not let personal theology set the rules without honest secular reasons behind the rule?
Perhaps BUT MOSTLY that it'll brake their march toward fascist Plutocracy and protect the weaker from the more powerful!
Think about this PEOPLE!
Cut to the chase. Any group that wants to pack the court is itself highly partisan, is it not?
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If Roberts does not give lip service to the notion of his partisanship, then his court and rulings become both more easily overturned in the future and, more importantly as illegitimate.
SCOTUS does not represent the will of the majority of Americans--not by a long shot. How many SCOTUS were nominated by a POTUS who won the popular vote?
And then we have the Senates poor representation of citizens.
They are illegitimate, and more so because of Moscow Mitch.
"But none of this will matter unless Democrats acknowledge that the chief justice is the extreme..."
None of this will matter is if Trump get another 4 years.
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After Bush v Gore decision, Citizen’s United, as well as the Kavanaugh debacle, many Americans realized the Supreme Court is no longer Supreme. I read Justice Roberts pleading op ed with skepticism and cynicism. They have been “outed” as partisans and he wants us to still revere them. When they reverse Roe v Wade,and The ACA they will become a total joke.
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Any court that uses the 14th amendment, passed in the 19th century by lawmakers who certainly considered homosexuality a sin (whether rightly or not is irrelevant for jurisprudential purposes), and which does not mention marriage, let alone gay marriage, to legalize the same has long since passed its expiration date.
It has reduced the constitution to a crass word soup from which one can string together any meaning required.
2
I’ve never understood how working class peeps vote conservative. In legislation, court rulings and politics conservatives hate working class people. Think of them as expendable resources and do everything’s they can to make their lives short and miserable. Yet, the working class in America seem to be ignorant of a great many things in this regard. Drunk on evangelical religion, crass TV, poor nutrition they are kept in place rather well. I guess it is to be expected when the quality of education available in the US is what it is (read: Charter schools, poor public school funding and a societal hatred for science and facts). I know of few industrialized countries where they still debate teaching evolution. How do you expect to have a flourishing democracy when the nature of truth is up for grabs?
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This is a RED SCOTUGOP, not a SCOTUS.
Roberts can improvise but he won't.. and I agree that he is a classic partisan who knows - how to manage his public image.
1
It is all a game, a shameful game. People really think that judges and lawyers are "non partisans"? They are as partisans as any politician. Don't we call them conservatives or liberals? Our country descent into darkness has only just began!
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@Adlibruj - I believe the lawyers are the politicians , or a majority of them.
Trump will be gone soon. A Democratic President can quickly reverse some of the damaging decisions he has made with respect to the environment, foreign relations, immigration, and more. But we will be stuck with his most insidious legacy. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, who along with the predictably conservative Roberts and Alito and the remarkably incompetent Thomas will dominant our lives for years to come.
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Justice Roberts epitomizes the old adage that "you can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin it only once."
His concern is mainly that any one ruling might be the act that skins the sheep. But make no mistake - he's as eager with the clippers as the next conservative justice.
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History clearly showed Democrat appointed Justices have a voting record that NEVER diverges from their parties line! All four vote as one! Meanwhile, many votes show Republican appointed Justices voting against their parties perceived positions. Because the authors identify as 'liberals' they won't mention this!
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I for one have little faith in the Supreme Court. time and time again we have seen the court lurch this way then lurch that way and then speaker McConnell Barrs a sitting president from choosing. if you want to restore Americans faith in the Supreme Court then set term limits on chief justices. which certainly will never happen. when you have a plum pestigious gig, who would give that up? the Supreme Court is tainted by its politics, it knows this and is unwilling to change its own status quo.
1
How much do we expect the members of the SCOTUS to reflect the population of America? Religiously? Racially? Philosophically? Geographically? Sócio-economically? The current court does not reflect us on any of those measures.
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I would like to focus on one word, that serves as an excuse...polarization..the reason I find it an excuse, is because there is a reason we are polarized( no argument), my thoughts and some will disagree, rests on one political party being the cause..any guesses
As a foil to this, the D's go to left field again and allows itself to get defined by the party who is doing the polarizing.
I have a question to the elected "why do you think we are polarized?" Thank You
1
Court packing is wrong in so many ways it boggles the mind any serious person could advocate for it. In 20 years we’d wind up with a completely unworkable Supreme Court with dozens of judges. Ridiculous, as is calling Justices “extremist“ when the op-ed authors are taking the most extremist position of all.
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For this reader wondering how Merrick Garland might voted will hang over ever SCOTUS decision from now until historical wrong done Mr Obama's nominee is, one way or another, corrected.
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The Dred Scott decision, probably the worst Superme Court case ever, affirmed that black slaves WERE NOTt persons but chattel. The Robert's court affirmed that corporations WERE persons, probably the second worst decision in a land that has claimed to be a democracy. Both attempted to apply conservative ideology to the concept of personhood. Property over people. And that is all we need to know.
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Take back the court, Aaron Belkin and Sean McElwee are also as "partisan as they come."
Why do they think their agenda is any more legitimate than anyone else's?
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The question is not whether judges will “ block the agenda of the next Democratic president and Congress”, but whether said elected officials respect the Constitution we have rather than demanding that judges give us a Constitution leftists like.
Democrats need only “fear” if their policies offend the Constitution as written. And they do.
When an actual judge “ lands time and again with the conservatives”, that’s powerful evidence that the “conservatives” are correct.
The authors do not want to “take by the Court”; they demand, rather, a group of black-robed leftists politicians who will impose their views via fiat.
Consider: is there a “conservative” view involving “racial minorities”? Or a Constitutional view, which says that such status is generally irrelevant? Why is concern for human life (the owner of which hasn’t committed mass murder) considered “conservative”?
The CJ is correct, vis a vis the authors. They’re not interested in judges; they want politicians who think like they do an will not let trivialities, like the actual language of a text, stand between them and the results they want.
Judges are about process; extreme leftists are about results. The authors simply don't care about what the law actually is. They want judges who will arrive at the Politically Correct result.
A judge's ONLY guide should be the text of the law, not the result that text compels. Which explains why leftists don't like actual judges.
2
@Michael - I must have missed the part about money being speech.
“The authors are affiliated with Take Back the Court, a liberal group that favors expanding the size of the Supreme Court.”
I guess Justice Roberts isn’t the only partisan here.
4
"Chief Justice John Roberts Is as Partisan as They Come"
Well, when authors reveal they have no credibility in the title, what can one say otherthan, next page please.
If that were actually true, Obamacare would already be gone. Roberts is the one who betrayed his oath and preserved it.
1
When the Court decided that money is free speech they essentially quashed free speech for 99% of Americans. The Court is about as bi-partisan as Fox News.
2
This court, and this whole government, is illegitimate.
It has no moral authority; no political authority; no economic authority over the people of the United States.
The GOP has completely undermined the US government by its daily acts of lying, treason, crime, coverups of crime, and utter moral corruption. Its constituency has aided and abetted all of the above.
Trump is the true genius above it all. He's actually done us all a great, public service: exposing the morally, politically, economic corrupt Republican Party for what it truly is.
He has turned the log over, and we are seeing all the maggots, daily, eating away at our country.
He should run as a Progressive Democratic Candidate in 2020; he could then do us the same service for the Democratic Party.
We need to root out corruption wherever it may be in the USA; we do ourselves, and the world, a deep disservice by delaying even a single moment.
The Supreme Court and its Republican members participates in all of this; it is saturated with the corruption of the GOP, and must be cleaned out as well.
This nothing but propaganda, pure and simple. It's disturbing that this kind of pap is actually passed off of on people who are supposed to be educated--and believed. It's chilling--and telling--that the authors of this piece advocate expanding the SC because of politics while, simultaneously excoriating the very idea of politics in the SC. What you mean to say is it isn't YOUR kind of politics. If congress did its job, the SC wouldn't have to do it for them.
3
Good, now we just need two more once Mr. Trump gets re-elected.
Let’s be clear about this: it wasn’t “Republicans” who held open the Merrick Garland vacancy, it was Mitch McConnell.
And who elected Mitch McConnell to be majority leader?
@GAS - I failed to notice if any Republicans stood up to MoscowMitch - did a single one amontst the rank and file, protest such a dereliction of duty ? Did one of them even question their own dereliction of duty ?
I was cranked out , edjamakated by the US Public School System, during the 1960s and 1970s.
During that time, almost on a daily basis, the teachers reinforced four intrinsic values of each and every individual American ... throughout all time.....
1. Judeo-Christian Work Ethic
2. Pioneer Spirit.
3. Rugged Individualism
4. Yankee Pragmatism.
Of the current members of the Supreme Court......not one single justice exhibits any of these key values...except perhaps Neil Gorsuch.
All the others follow lock-step some ridiculous political agenda that serves nobody any good purpose.
This is the sad result of Ted Kennedy's weak strategy to assassinate the character of Robert Bork.
'stolen goods' gorsuch makes the court lack credibility.
buttigieg's plan makes sense; 15 justices, 5 chosen by unanimous consent by the other 10.
1
So, your recommendation is to "take back" the Court and now pack it by increasing the number of justices, because your political views supposedly differ from the "conservative" leaning Court? My guess is that such a ridiculous suggestion will have the same result as FDR's efforts to pack the Court did. Should Republicans then pack the Court even further when they re-gain control of Congress? Your suggestion is asinine and purely driven by politics and not from any appreciation of what the Court is or does. Co-author Sean McElwee is a left-wing activist who also suggested (and pushes for) the abolition of ICE. His views are not mainstream by any means and are meant to tear down this country. Ignore his drivel.
3
FDR’s “ridiculous” suggestion was a success. Prior to the threat, the court regularly overturned New Deal legislation. After 1937, it never did. The justices only needed reminding that their authority to define the constitution was subject to congress’s authority to define the court.
A similar reminder is due today.
1
A laughable headline. Roberts may be right of center, but he is the least partisan member of the court.
1
The Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case destroyed its credibility period. Rather than constraining legal bribery by massive political donations, they enlarged the "For Sale" sign. They flat-out enabled corporations to deny the will of voters. This corruption of elections by the Court betrays
Democracy and turns their credibility into a bitter joke. The Court's gutting of voting rights and effective support of gerrymandering only affirms the Court's prejudices, partisanship, and failure.
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@B Major If the only damage you can point to wreaked by the Supreme Court is Citizen's United, you have a pretty weak case. Massive contributions - from corporations and unions - have been going on before and after the decision. One change the decision did make is to protect political speech from a corporate entity against prior restraint. In the case, that corporate entity happened to be an anti-Hilary PAC trying to air an anti-Hillary Clinton. But what if it were an anti-Trump video from a labor union-backed PAC? That's also a corporate entity, and -- prior to Citizen's United -- that could be suppressed by a campaign finance law as well.
4
@Peter Blau - Aren't the 2 controlling political parties (RNC, DNC) themselves actually corporate entities ?
6
@B Major This ruling could be made less corrosive if the list of donors were made public. Then we voters could decide what companies to support and which to boycott--a choice that could be made by both the Right and the Left. But that's exactly what the donors don't want so the Court didn't add that. Think that's not partisan?
22
History will factually state Justice Roberts legacy. The History books will not be kind if he chooses to toe the Republican line in favor of crazy Trumpian ideology rather than what is best for the country in The Age of Trump!
It worked pretty good for a couple of hundred years, but our political system is broken.
Republicans have led our government into a toxic, partisan swamp. They've abandoned all decency, and put their own personal goals and lust for power above that of the nation they swore to serve.
2
"He says he is concerned about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public."
Only some of them. From the start--Bush v. Gore--he clearly sees the public as either Americans or Democrats. His choking when he administered the oath to Obama was a perfect tell.
2
Don't be fooled. Aaron Belkin and Sean McElwee are a partisan as they come. Even more so, because they want courts to do the partisan work they can't convince legislatures to do.
2
Permit me to suggest reading carefully the comments by magroll and Walter Ingram and note the indignation of Robert Q and Bob about the oligarchy. Then read some of the (perhaps shorter) work of Thomas Piketty and others who have worked on wealth and income inequality.
The day any Supreme Court Justice joins that court, he or she enters the 1%. That is, if the 1% is not where they came from.
The Supreme Court's credibility and legitimacy has been in freefall since the Garland nomination was stolen.
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@OD For me, they lost it in the Bush/Gore decision in Florida. The SC had no business deciding that election, and Sandra Day O'Connor admitted years later that she cast her vote because a Republican had to be in the White House. I'm sure she wasn't the only justice who voted that way for that reason. The SC dropped precipitously in my respect at that time, and Citizens United and Garland are simply aftereffects.
34
@OD Actually it's been since they stole the election for Bush.
14
@OD then I think you need to learn a bit more about its history, because the Garland nomination is one item in a very long list of partisan issues related to the Supreme Court...
11
A politicized SC Is the final nail in a failing democratic society.
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@FJG - Every US Supreme Court since it was created was considered wildly partisan by it's opposition. But you'd have to have actually read serious non-fiction works in US history to know this so you may be excused.
2
@FJG -Thanks you! Failing Democratic Society is my new definition of the US.
8
@CK
Yes, but they never had a lethal combination like Trump, McConnell, Barr and others as suppprters.
Your barb about non fiction was uncalled for, but coming from upstate NY--you're excused.
7
Yes, Republicans want the Supreme Court to be an instrument of their views, but so do the Democrats. The Dems when in a majority have always made decisions on the Court according to their own ideology: on civil rights, on desegregation, among other decisions; on gay rights and of course on abortion. The idea that the Court is or can be non political is naive. It has been political since John Marshall during the administrations of Adams and Jefferson, pro Adams and anti Jefferson.
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@n1789
While this may be true, what happened to Garland was unprecedented.
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@n1789 I agree. In the political system, to the victor goes the spoils. Picking a winning candidate in 2000 and 2016 would’ve made s difference. And by winning, I mean the presidency under the terms set for in the constitution: electoral college. For all of their faults, the republicans out game the democrats evertime. The rules do not have a “let’s let everyone have a chance to be in charge” mentality.
22
@Gerald The electoral college and state control of elections were designed to preserve classic Republican values and not mass democracy. So we have to take the bad with the good. If the American masses are allowed full freedom to choose our country becomes a democratic tyranny. Right now we are just an oligarchy, which may be better believe it or not.
12
It is high time we begin to contemplate major structural reforms to our system of government. We now have three anti-democratic institutions which do not reflect the will of the People. In our zeal to protect minority interests we neglect the majority. The people want healthcare, we do not have it. The people want gun control, there is none. The people want to protect the environment the President thumbs his nose at environmental science. The people want a rational immigration system we have chaos. Women want to control their own bodies we have men telling them what they should do.
I suggest the will of the People needs a powerful voice in the form of a national referendum system which bypasses Congress and the President when the majority is not being represented. I believe this would be a path to end gridlock and serve as a potential rebuke when the will of the people is being ignored. The role of government should be to do the most good, most of the time, for the most people.
3
You know the Supreme Court isn't functioning properly when the Chief Justice can only ever deliver 5-4 rulings. The Court's legitimacy has already panned. We need Congress to step-in and pack the Court. Not that Court packing is a solution in itself. However, drastic action will bring re-balancing and partisanship to the forefront of the public debate. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are both tainted. Clarence Thomas is tainted as well for that matter. Time to shake things up.
4
@Andy For the 2018/2019 term, the SC delivered decisions in 68 cases, and 47 of them were neither 5-4 nor 5-3. They were outnumbered by the 9-0 and 8-0 decisions. This is according to Ballotpedia.
don't be fooled indeed. it was after all, justice roberts who cast the deciding vote in undoing federal oversight protections of voting rights in the south and undoing political campaign funding rules, allowing unlimited and unaccountable "dark" money to over run the electoral process. elevated to the chief justice seat by bush, he's about as partisan as they come despite his claims of neutrality.
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@Steve And yet Obamacare was upheld - unfortunately.
2
@Steve ...
Forty or fifty-year-old data on social matters is rarely accurate for present consideration.
Think carefully before you respond.
@Steve Federal oversight was not changed. All that was changed was preclearance for some southern states, who now are as integrated as any other state. The Voting Rights Act is intact.
Laws matter mightilly.... and do these laws reflect the wishes of most Americans who it would seem are now anti-abortions in all cases, undecided on birth control, think it's great to have laws to protect the profits of drug companies, don't want a system to bring down the costs of medical care mightily (universal single payer), think the rich should not have to pay taxes?, are convinced that monopolies are a good thing (Walmart, Amazon),etc., think it's OK to shut down immigration from certain regions of the world?
Is the court a mirror? (I would hope not.) Precedent is crucial in the system of "English" law. Perhaps there should be Supreme Court terms? One might hope the Gorsuch is saner than a few of the othersl
The authors of this piece are also as partisan as they come. Any Court decision that has the effect of a policy that the left disagrees with is automatically declared political, even if the legal reasoning behind the decision is anything but. These authors and the left generally merely wants a Court that pushes their policy agenda rather than the other guys.
5
Can’t stomach reading about the scotus the office has been so degraded in recent years starting with Rehnquist , Thomas and now two who shouldn’t even be there. One denied by pure political reason. The entire court is rotten to the core. It’s time to change this political arm and return it to what the founding fathers meant it to be. Justice for all.
5
Supreme Court should have a say in selecting few probable candidates for any vacant position among its ranks as a judge there. Political appointees, appointed by the President and the majority party in Senate are bound to have political and other ideological (mainly religious) bias. Only the degree would vary while public perception about justice being served would also be views from such political and religious angle.
We know so how even seemingly very clear texts in US constitution were interpreted by many Supreme Court judges in a very distorted way, altering the meaning of English language of the words. One good example would be meaning of "God", "religious freedom", secularism etc as the phrases/words like "In God we trust" (as our national motto, replacing a much better one- "E pluribus unum") and "under God" in pledge of allegiance were introduced in mid 1950s during cold war with communist Russia.
Many of today's sociopolitically ultra polarizing issues like abortion, climate change, education policy, etc. arose due to politicization of our judiciary and growing influence of religion imposed by various politicians, mainly the Republicans (more since Christian fundamentalist President Reagan, in public policy & education (even higher education) in the country.
2
As a Democrat and a lawyer who historically placed great faith in the Supreme Court, and then watched horrified as Bush v Gore, Citizens United, and now Rucho v Common Cause tipped the scales so drastically in favor of entrenching Republican power for the long term, I agree that Chief Justice Roberts is an "extreme, right wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority, which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party." Thank you for publishing this.
I just wish there was something we could do about it.
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@Deborah S. To do something about the right wing court,
Congress must pass legislation that nullifies the court's decisions. If, and it is a very big if, elections have to favor candidates that fall in the center-left of the spectrum. Whenever there is an unpopular decision, reverse it by unequivocal laws.
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@Deborah S.
It's a long hard slog, but the only remedy is to change the Constitution. That means working election by election for legislative bodies across the States that would vote for a Constitutional Convention. Daunting but necessary for restoring the liberty and protection of the citizens.
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@Deborah S. "I agree that Chief Justice Roberts is an "extreme, right wing leader of an extreme, right-wing majority, which is rapidly turning the court into little more than a partisan extension of the Republican Party.""
Except that isn't true and by the NYT's own data analysis. If you follow the link below and look at the "Justice Ideology" graph showing left-right bias, you'll see that Roberts (and Kavanaugh) have a net bias of just about zero for the last year. This whole "extreme right-wing majority" stuff concerning SCOTUS is a ridiculous, emotions-based myth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/supreme-court-decisions.html
12
Roberts should have a reason to worry. We have lost faith in their decisions. For me, it happened when they decided that corporations can highjack the political system.
It is a very sad situation we are in because the day that our system of laws and the Supreme Court become part of the political bickering in the country, we will no longer have a democracy.
We might as well make the justices political appointees of the party in power.
13
I have no faith in the Supreme Court. It began to erode in 2000 when it put Bush in the White House and continued with Citizens United, gutting of the VRA, and finally completely disappeared with the Merrick Garland fiasco. I expect the Court to destroy LBGT rights, overturn Roe, back any 2nd Amendment issue that favors gun rights and finish off any conception that it is an independent branch of government. It is indeed a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. In the next months Roberts and his conservative justices will more than prove that.
37
It might be proper for us Americans to more clearly define what being Conservative means today. If someone is a conservative dresser, then we expect a suit and tie and socks that match. Muted and appropriate for almost occasion except backyard football. Conservative used to mean appropriate, legal and according to cultural norms. Now, it seems conservative means Resistant to Changing Cultural Norms, and a changing majority of populations that are not white, resisting the existing laws regarding abortion and returning to laws formed to divide races, classes and sexes and favors wealthy citizens.
Conservative now seems to mean backward, not "appropriate" for the 21st century.
17
It is interesting and sad that Democrats have fallen for the idea that you are what you say you are. The Republicans fell for this line from Trump ("stable genius"), and now their Democratic counterparts are doing the same with respect to Chief Justice Roberts.
What Chief Justice Roberts need to do is to study his Supreme Court history books. Does he really want to go down in history as the reviled Chief Justice Taney of the 21st century? Or as the justice who wrote or sponsored the Dred Scott opinions of his era?
5
The moment that McConnell stated that he would seat a new justice in Trump’s last year in office after denying that during Obama’s final year he made Justice Gorsuch & the entire Supreme Court illegitimate. It was then that Chief Justice Roberts should have challenged McConnell for the sake of the future of the court. His silence tells me all I need to know about the partisanship of the current Supreme Court.
42
The legitimacy of this court has been in doubt for a while. There is a reasonable argument to be made that all five of the conservative justices obtained their seats through a mix of perjury (Thomas), and nominations by illegitimate presidents (Bush and Trump). They have shown themselves to care nothing of long-standing precedents (Citizens United) or the health of our democracy. How far from our nation's best interests will they veer during this session? God only knows.
8
Thanks to Mitch McConnell and the GOP the term "legitimacy" no longer applies to the Supreme Court. "Kangaroo" does, but not legitimacy.
9
The trick for Roberts is how to keep the Court's right wing partisan decisions from going so far as to tear the country in two while at the same time satisfying his conservative ideology. Democrats can only take so much before they decide that they must break away from the conservative red states. Roberts would not want a new civil war to be his legacy.
4
It would be interesting to see all the justices rated with the system used to rate the Chief Justice. it would either strengthen the argument, or not.
1
I've not heard any good reasons why the Court should not be expanded, the way Pete Buttigieg has suggested. McConnell has broken the rules already, and there's nothing constitutional about the number 9. I hope among his first actions when elected will be the nomination of 2 more judges, one of them clearly being Merrick Garland.
19
@raven55 -- Can't stand The Mayor, but this is a good idea. I think the Democrats should pick a small, talented number of officials whose only job is to impeach and prosecute Republican rule/protocol breakers. Get them permanently out of our government, and return us to a reliable democracy.
2
It will be interesting to see whether Roberts chooses to support the more liberal views as 'logically required' to counter-balance legislative malfeasance (i.e. the 'reverse packing' of the court).
1
Let's not kid ourselves: the Court has always been partisan, but the outcry was more muted because the Court's decisions tilted towards inclusion rather than exclusion and its decisions led the American psyche. Key decisions concerning civil rights were unanimous , not because all the justices agreed, but the symbolism of a key institution endorsing civil rights was vital. The current court and the current GOP have been kidnapped by a small, bigoted religious cult that is vocal and intent on the laws of the country be rooted in theocracy not democracy. There is little we can do about this dangerous tilt, but the next time there's an election and there is talk of the need to ensure the integrity of the courts--including the supreme one--pay attention.
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Right wingers have won the game of semantics as applied to the Court. To many voters the idea of “conservative” judges sounds appealing. The truth is that Roberts and his majority are the true radicals on the Court. The so called liberal Justices, on most non hot button culture war issues, fit the common understanding of the word conservative far better. These are the issues that actually have a greater effect on the everyday lives of most Americans.
7
Partisan justice, justices, v. Non-partisan, legal, Constitutional principles. This article, and comments point to (to me) an inescapable conclusion. We need a Constitutional Convention to update our basic document. Not for the first time in comments, I believe it is unfair to we-the-people, and the justices, to believe that nine people can make impartial rulings, years after an event, that decide the fundamental, directional questions on issues our founders never envisioned, dreamed of.
Aside from the obvious divisions, gun rights, abortion, religion- now we have questions of presidential prerogatives, legislative investigatory overreach, mysterious memos claiming immunity from prosecution for a president- that will take years, possibly millions in legal fees, to decide. And those have cropped up in just the past few years.
What might be on the horizon? States talking secession, states wanting to combine, join other states into one larger one, or parts of states joining other parts of states. And we won’t even get into global bodies that might overrule our laws in the name of trade fairness. Space law? Gerrymandering, electronic voting, fake news, doctored photos, et all. We are not 13 states, fearing ‘factions’, an unknown continent.
Nine people. If they were saints- would need more updated, more reality-based guidance than our Constitution now provides. Yes, it is dangerous. Where we are headed without making an attempt to modernize - I think is even more dangerous.
9
And you can lay this right at the feet of Mitch McConnell, who undermined our constitution, denied a sitting president his constitutional right to appoint a Supreme Court Judge and has forever compromised the integrity of our democracy.
Thanks McConnell for the long term damage you’ve done to our nation.
Vote my friends in Kentucky, the bought and paid for Mitch McConnell needs to go.
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@Steven Amy McGrath--remember the name, cause she is amazing!
1
This article performs a public service by dispelling a widely held misconception of Chief Justice John Roberts as being a non-partisan conservative or even a moderate. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As a recently retired lawyer with extensive trial and appellate experience, admittedly a liberal on questions of civil rights, it drives me crazy to hear my fellow Democrats give their blessing to the Chief Justice.
In his confirmation hearing, it can be argued that John Roberts lied to the Senate about who he is and what he stands for. As Chief Justice, John Roberts uses a smile and a pleasant voice to convey a façade of reasonableness.
Not only is he extremely partisan, the Chief Justice is very comfortable in ignoring the establishment clause by deferring to the wishes of evangelical Christians to support their agenda on abortion. He seems untroubled by white supremacists, by voter suppression directed at Americans likely to vote for Democrats, by allowing the unfettered sale of assault weaponry used in mass shootings and by acceding to authoritarian measures which diminish and threaten our representative democracy.
Although most Republicans have written a blank check for the Roberts court, Democrats and Independents have no excuse for not waking up to the disgraceful legacy of this Chief Justice.
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“A dangerous lurch rightward” for the Supreme Court means simply that the left has left its iron grip in the Supreme Court and its “creative” decisions. “The Democrats should be afraid” ? Most likely, if the Democrats are now the far left. The Americans in general ? Not so much.
6
You want creative? You got it.
In Heller, an individual right to own a gun. Overturning 2 centuries of jurisprudence, and invalidating potentially hundreds of gun control laws across the country.
On Medicaid, deciding congress, which created Medicaid and could abolish it, could not modify it without consent from every governor.
In Citizens United, money is speech, invalidating once again congress’s express intent to regulate elections.
If the liberal decisions you dislike, which one overturned a law congress enacted? They’re pretty rare, and always come down on the side of individual liberty.
@Gimme A. Break The left has never had an iron grip on the court.
Thank you for this column. I have long thought that Roberts opinions were a reflection of his hoping history would not be too harsh on a Roberts Court but now see his strategy. Just enough to hold off the critics. Remember Citizens United, which has done extreme damage to our country by allowing unlimited dark money in elections, was under his leadership.
25
Ever since I was in law school and read Scalia's opinions I couldn't believe the complete lack of impartiality, which, clearly disseminates throughout the right's ranks. As a philosophy major who spent four years reading Plato, Kant, and the greatest thinkers the Western World has ever produced, reading Scalia was like reading a grade-school level partisan hack. I say that will all sincerity.
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@Rich My favorite justice while I was in school was William Brennan. What you are saying about Scalia sounds an awful lot like what my conservative classmates used to say about Brennan. I think RBG would disagree with your assessment. Scalia was not a hack, and that is what made him, for lack of a better word, dangerous.
1
@Rich - My principal criticism of Scalia as the "textualist" and "originalist" is that it is not clear he could read English. And he certainly did not understand English usage of the 1780s.
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@Rich
Scalia was the worse offender and so unapologetic, even defiant, about it.
3
The Framers of the Constitution established 3 branches of government. Not 2 branches of government. The judicial branch is, and always has been, a branch of government with all the same ideologies and partisans and self-seekers as any other.
The SCOTUS is not some pristine academy of scholarly inquiry and discourse, divorced from the reality of human politics. It is part and parcel of the government. Don't be fooled by the robes.
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There's no doubt Roberts is a partisan Chief Justice, however, we can only hope that he will rule for the Constitution when the inevitable Trump v Congress case comes before the SCOTUS later this term. I guess there's always hope.
4
@Joe Smith Where there is life there is hope. But how many of us really believe the Supreme Court is nonpartisan after the Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000) or the recent shunting off of Justice Kennedy for a Brett Kavanaugh?
GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats in 2020 as if your life depended on it.
For those nice people who think that the Supreme Court in nonpartisan and the justices just decide each case according to the law and precedent. Look at the cases which come before the court and see how the different justices decide.
For example if there is a case involving a corporation and an individual (either customer or employee) the 5 conservative justices are always going to support the corporation. It does not matter about the facts of the case, the circumstances, law, etc. They are always going to find a way to support the corporation. Of course they dress up the decision with talk of "originalism", "textualism," "strict construction," etc.
The same with a case involving labor. The conservatives always go against the working people. That is regardless of the facts of the case.
There are probably other examples, but you get the idea.
The five conservatives were not chosen at random. They were carefully vetted. They grew up in the right-kind of family, went to the right schools, had the right careers, joined the Federalist Society, associated with the right-kind of people, supported the right-kind of causes, etc.
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So, this begs the question of why go through the charade of the confirmation hearing. I understand Constitutional mandates but really, if nominees like Roberts can say anything, including outright lies, what's the point?
11
I have noticed the lying during the confirmation process also. Combined with McConnell packing the courts, this has really undermined the process.
9
The point is they go through the motions of democracy to have the appearance of legitimacy but everyone knows and can predict the partisan outcome.
Think back to the Kavanaugh hearing and the political theatre of delaying a couple of days so the FBI could “investigate”. Did anyone really believe the investigation would find anything of substance? Is anyone surprised when we learned last month that a long list of people who corroborated the sexual assault allegations weren’t even interviewed?
No. The fix is in. The Supreme Court of the United States is partisan. The dark money behind what is left of the Republican Party now has control of the ultimate legal authority in America. It only took them 40 years to do it.
5
The problem with federal courts is the absence of due process of the law. Judging is arbitrary: as I learned in my own litigation, federal judges feel free to replace in their decisions parties' argument with bogus argument of judges' own concoction so as to decide cases the way they want to, not the way they have to. When I sued those judges for fraud, their argument was that they gave themselves, via Pierson v. Ray, the right to act from the bench "maliciously and corruptly"
Simply put, judges are parties to the case argued before them -- contrary to any notion of "due process." Deny them this ability by defining "due process" and making sure that judges are limited to evaluating parties' argument rather than making up their own -- and the problem is solved.
Judges should not be free agents as they are now. With "due process" firmly defined, conservative or liberal, judges would have to arrive at the same conclusion.
4
After the Dred Scott decision, many in northern states ignored the rights of slave owners to recover their property in free states considering the decision and the laws that allowed such a thing to be legal.
We've already seen rural sheriffs in Oregon and Colorado say they have no requirement to uphold the gun control laws that are the laws of the state, I think the time has come for progressive states like the northeastern and Pacific Coast states to say that they feel they have no requirement to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court when it comes to gun control or other issues.
As Andrew Jackson famously said of the decision by the court under John Marshall, "Marshall has made the ruling, let him enforce it."
5
He is a rank partisan on a scale that few can comprehend. His strategy is simple, much like the Allies after they cracked the Enigma code machine. Roberts chooses when to lose and when to win, because he is the only swing vote anymore.
On mostly inconsequential issues that have little value to conservatives, he votes for minor liberal victories, in order to give the appearance of balance when an important and consequential decision must be decided in favor of conservatives. Kavanaugh regularly engaged in this behavior on the DC circuit, and it is playing out the same on SCOTUS.
Go ahead, keep score this term, but not just on the number of wins and losses for conservatives, but track the significance of those wins and losses.
18
Democrats failed to protect America from Republicans who work for plutocrats. Americans have lost voting rights protections, have had our citizenship diminished in favor of corporations, have had the “religious” beliefs of corporations supersede the rights of citizens, have had speech stripped from all Americans who don’t have money because according to the court “money is speech”. America is being destroyed by Republicans who are devoted to replacing our Republic with a plutocracy. There is no policy or program that Republicans have inaugurated that serves the majority. They have spent years trying to undermine Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and the ACA. Tragically, Democrats have refused to couple the Republican war on social welfare and funding public schools and infrastructure while handing the wealth of our country to the rich. Democrats have rich people who are threatening to vote for Trump if Warren wins the nomination. It is time to call them out. It is time to remind Americans that they can have better schools, roads, healthcare and to remind them that insurance companies and hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry are making healthcare decisions and only Medicare can stand against them and for individual citizens. It is time for Democrats promise to restore trust in government and promise Americans a government of, by, and for the people.
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@Joseph Huben - I am very sorry to report to you that it seems a stealth attack has been made on our Medicare. Seems The Peoples Medicare as been effectively sold off to Big Insurance. I refer you to :
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-just-launched-a-stealth-attack-on-seniors-health-care
@Joseph Huben Get out the vote for Democrats in 2020 - or lose even a semblance of democracy in America.
1
When one can predict with accuracy the votes on the Supreme Court, one knows the ideological fix is in. The only truth is liberal and centrist judges come in with an open mind, conservative judges do not.
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@Bill I assume the later part is just your hope (and it is mine as well) but the partisan divides width suggest ideology both ways. Just different color rose on the lens.
For example, the democrats have been horrendous on criminal justice protections for the accused since the 1980’s. On this issue, the Dems have failed for the very purpose of promoting a social agenda to purge the super predators targeted by both parties in the 1990’s. Read the opinions. They are bad.
1
@Gerald The opinions are bad and in many cases hyper-partisan all around. Alito,Thomas and Scalia among the worst. That said, my second part was just a fact, sure there are some partisan creep with liberals and moderates, but they do have far more open minds. By the way, the alleged originalist theories touted by Scalia and Thomas are absolute bunk. The Founders left a way to amend the Constitution as time goes on and it has happened 27 times to adjust for wrongs to the original document and to update for more modern times.
2
Despite the evidence, perhaps, I think that Roberts is capable of independence. He is a Republican, he is conservative, but it is not what I see as from the hyper political radical right. Keep in mind that he didn't come from privilege, which gives him grounding a world away from Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. He didn't intimidate or harass classmates and get away with it because of privilege; his mother wasn't a Reagan appointee.
Perhaps it's naive, but I see him as truly concerned with the law, and think that may move him in different directions than his farthest right colleagues.
A For the rest: If Dems do not win Senate seats, and the next appointments, we will have a rigidly right SC for the foreseeable future; as a "leading edge boomer"I'll be dead before there is an opportunity for change. But that change is on us now.
1
The Roberts court has done a lot to assist republicans in maintaining control of the legislative branch of federal and state government. Decisions weakening the voting rights act, allowing a flood of corporate money, refusing to address computerized gerrymandering, weakening labor unions, have tilted the political playing field in favor of republicans. These and other decisions have also had the collateral effect of hurting workers severely. The court is not so subtlety paving the way to oligarchy.
10
@Robert O. Paving the way to oligarchy? Sir, we arrived at oligarchy quite some time ago.
11
Yes. And, only one reason I find Bernie’s motto, #NotMeUs so much more compelling.
Certainly more compelling than Warren’s waiting until it personally suits her chances of occupation of the White House to endorse a progressive agenda, for example.
However, I find plainly stating our current state of affairs as an oligarchy, and every candidate except Bernie potentially complicit, is generally met by NYT readers with a great deal of denial and derision.
(I must register that I don’t appreciate your assumption by using Sir that I must be a man, unless your meaning is that, by being mistaken that we are not yet an oligarchy, only a man could be so naïve or foolish... but even to that, I must object, not being fond of any type of objectification.)
Congress has no control over the Roberts Court. They therefore throw this "legitimacy of the court," argument out, hoping Roberts will be influenced. He will not.
2
The author obscures her message by focusing on gun control, abortion, L.G.B.T. rights and immigration. The S Ct can issue rulings restraining proponents of each of these issues and most voters will not care.
It will get interesting when the S Ct restricts income-redistribution legislation like the existing ACA or legislation regulating the financial industry, the pharmaceuticals, the energy industry, or big agriculture. A series of rulings rejecting income-redistribution legislation--maybe even tax reform--might lead the majority of the voters to begin to realize the massive con of the Republican party. But an ambitious reeducation process also will be necessary.
This is where the problem lies. The Democrats are unequipped to guide the reeducation process because too many of them, like this author, are preoccupied with social issues to the exclusion of pocketbook issues or, like Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and countless others, can buy into only half measures to restore a fairer distribution of income--rejecting basic measures that might restore income distribution patters of, say, the level that existed in 1960.
At some point, no one will be able to ignore how the Republicans have systematically stripped economic security from the majority of Americans, their children, and their grandchildren. But we may not reach this point anytime soon, and this article impliedly explains why.
8
@maqroll A point very well made! I've been saying this for years. This is a court bought and paid for by corporate America, disguised as pro-life.
This court time and again rules in favor of contract law, to circumvent Congressional oversight that protects American consumers as in Ohio v AmEx. They also consistently rule against labor as in Janus.
Then of course we have Roberts most brazen ruling of all, where he, nearly single handedly allowed for the buying of Congress and the courts, through Citizens.
4
@maqroll agree with you whole heartedly. Unfortunately, the events of the last couple years shouldn’t have been enough to wake people up. It has not, I fear your outlook may be too optimistic. Americans in their hubris, are capable of great ignorance.
@maqroll 'implicitly'
The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy when it stopped the vote count in Florida and crowned George W. Bush as president in 2000. Republicans believe that only they have the right to rule, they want a one party system. Strange how "Conservatives" haven't conserved the history that Americans rebelled and overthrew a king, and that they used to rail against one party governments like Russia or the old Soviet Union.
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@Scott Bodenheimer "Strange how "Conservatives" haven't conserved the history that Americans rebelled and overthrew a king,"
Not really that strange. The Conservatives of the day were Tories and Loyalists who supported the king and were against the Patriots and the rebellion that became the Revolutionary War. After the war some moved to England, others stayed, some went into hiding, but the conservatives have never been on the side of democracy and have continued to fight it to this day. That's why it's not surprising or strange.
7
@Scott Bodenheimer well stated !
1
Republicans consistently discard customary norms for party or personal benefit; Democrats still practice fair play in politics. Republicans are winning, our American democracy is losing.
16
There are EIGHTY COUNTS of misconduct against Kavanaugh that Roberts is supposed to be investigating! He sent it to the 10th Circuit Court to investigate. They responded that the charges were serious but they had no power to investigate a Supreme Court Justice. Roberts hasn't done his job!
16
@Carl D Actually he did do his job. He delayed the investigation until after Kavanaugh was put on the SC. This in turn disallowed the Circuit court to continue it's investigation, as they are not allowed to investigate a Supreme Justice. Robert's job was to ensure a corporate friendly court. He did just that!
4
SCOTUS has long been corrupted, and its reputation in tatters.
Handing the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, declaring corporations are "people," allowing the wealthiest corporations and individuals to buy elections, allowing racial gerrymandering, gutting the Voting Rights Act, allowing tax-exempt religious organizations and beliefs to steal away the rights of others and receive taxpayer funding, and ruling in favor of Trump's "unitary executive" monarchial theory of the presidency, etc.
The two-party corporate duopoly has allowed SCOTUS to be corrupted, and now has allowed Trump and the extreme right-wing to stack the federal courts with unqualified judges.
18
@Steve Davies
Yes, emphasize that point: judges who are not only extremely partisan, but in many documented cases totally unqualified.
7
@Steve Davies
I don't think that hey are unqualified, but they are biased.
In 2010, Roberts showed he has no respect for democracy, no respect for our values, our principles, our republic or our Constitution. The decision in Citizens United is pure plutocracy.
Plutocracy is what defines the GOP. There is no way Republicans can control our nation without subverting democracy. They win elections by buying them and Citizens United authorized them to purchase our executive and legislative branches of government.
By subverting democracy and making elective office a commodity of the wealthy, Roberts and company changed our republic into an authoritarian plutocracy.
The Roberts Court demeans the Constitution by making money free speech, which effectively means that if you don't have money, you don't have a voice.
Democrats continue to play by the rules while Republicans break every rule to ensure the wealthy rule America.
28
I'm a NYT reader and a firm Democrat, Progressive and "liberal" if you want to call it that, but I'm shocked at the cynical and frankly partisan tone of this opinion, calling out Roberts as a conniving "wolf in sheep's clothing". The real problem is that both parties have made the selection of Supreme Court judges a highly partisan process as a way to manipulate the courts to serve towards that end. This may have always been so, but I have faith that virtually none of these judges are party "bots," certainly not Roberts. If we want to have more faith in our Supreme Court we should elect Congressional representatives who promise to de-politicise the process and merely choose the best judges in the land for these high seats.
19
Roberts and Kavanaugh were both Republican operatives before their appointment. Roberts worked in the White House. None of the Democratic appointees has significant roles in the party.
Mr Balls and Strikes used pretzel logic to overturn Medicaid expansion. Congress created Medicaid and congress can destroy it. But, per Roberts, it was impermissible for congress to modify Medicaid. For that he was praised.
I remember reading about Roberts in the Times during his confirmation. The concern at the time was abortion, but Roberts’s record as a reliable friend of the corporate and plutocratic was plain as day, and remains so. He decided Amazon workers needn’t be paid while waiting to be searched before leaving work. He decided pay inequity suits had to be filed from the beginning of the discrimination, not upon discovery.
There isn’t room here to describe Roberts’s partisanship. I see no reason to doubt the study mentioned in the article.
@Tom I put away my rose-colored glasses years ago, so if you ever lose yours and want a replacement, I will send mine to you.