In his year-end review, John G. Roberts Jr. should have warned against blocking Supreme Court nominations for partisan advantage.
Source: What the Chief Justice Should Have Said – The New York Times
Today, from the estimably knowledgeable Linda Greenhouse, this criticism of Chief Justice John Roberts.
I intend to write to Justice Roberts, and not only about the failing Greenhouse talks about. I have to assume he’s an intelligent man (although I always had my doubts about the brains of Scalia). Therefore, I also have to assume that after a life of partisan politics as a conservative Republican, he will have developed an interest in what other people would grandly call his “legacy” as chief justice.
I mean, if I were a smart guy in his powerful position, that’s what I’d be thinking about right now, two weeks before he swears in The Twittler as his president. (Hey, he’s not mine, so let’s blame him on Roberts, who deserves the blame. See below as to why.)
This court is supposedly Roberts’ court–simply because he is chief. Right now, his “legacy” as chief of a court that is the final arbiter of law, of our Constitution–a Constitution that in its 230-year development from the original, very short version (you know, the one that accommodated slavery and even rewarded slave states for being slave states, and failed to give all of us, including us women, equal rights) does sort of suggest that the welfare of the entire population is its major concern–is lousy. (That sentence ran on too long, I know. So here’s the essence: “Right now, [Roberts’] “legacy” as chief of a court that is the final arbiter of law, of our Constitution, is lousy.”)
My biggest griefs with Roberts are his dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, leading to the old slave states immediate reaction–suppressing the votes of minorities; the DC Heller decision, a big win for the NRA and a huge loss for the rest of us sane gun control people; and Citizens United, guaranteeing a big business dark money flow into political campaigns and the outright purchase of politicians like Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and entire states like Wisconsin. (Wisconsin, a slave state wanna-be, also jumped on the unnecessary voter ID, voter suppression bandwagon. What a goal for a state! To emulate slave states. Wow.)
So I will write to Roberts and try to explain his “legacy” in my terms, and suggest that it’s time for him to make his allegiance to our real Constitution and run his court not as an arm of the Koch Brothers but as the Supreme Court of We the People of the United States.
I got an idea, kids! Let’s all write to John Roberts and tell him what we think about the way he’s been managing the Supreme Court. And then we can put on a show in the barn!