OPINION: Take The Hint, John Roberts -- It's Time For You To Retire, Too
Judges are like umpires, John Roberts famously said at his confirmation hearing as Chief Justice. Umpires dont make the rules, they apply them ... They make sure everybody plays by the rules, but it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.
The analogy is vivid and folksy and even more starkly at odds with reality today than when Roberts invoked it back in 2005.
One way to hear Roberts pious words is as a gesture of respect. He knows the truth is more complicated. But hes describing an ideal that right-thinking people should honor in theory, and judges and justices should strive at least to approximate in practice.
Another way to hear the words is as a gesture of contempt. Roberts is asking his audience to join him in a cynical exercise of make-believe. It is designed to preserve the fraudulent mystique of the high court as detached and apolitical when anyone can see from a surfeit of narrowly decided cases that justices are fully immersed in questions of politics and power.
...
This surprising act would be most likely to advance what the Chief Justice says he wants a revival of public faith in the Courts institutional legitimacy, and that its rulings flow from something other than the personal agendas of individual justices or the partisan machinations that placed them in their jobs.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/03/john-roberts-scotus-justices-00005051
leftieNanner
(15,084 posts)Or their toxic wives.
patphil
(6,172 posts)And at 67 years old he could be Chief Justice for 20 more years, baring illness or injury.
The oldest Republican on the court is Thomas at 73...easily the worst SC justice in my memory.
Alito is right in between them at 71.
Again, baring illness or injury, they'll both probably be around for at least 10-15 more years.
The 3 Trump appointees are much younger.
In other words, we're going to be subject to an extremely partisan, right wing, court probably into the 2040's, even if all future appointees are Democratic.
This is Mitch McConnell's legacy to America.
And that's a very depressing thought.
JohnSJ
(92,187 posts)rso
(2,271 posts)In relative terms, Roberts has not been a total disaster. Hes certainly not the total ideologue like his conservative colleagues, and hes been our ally in a handful of important decisions. And he slapped Donnie hard when Donnie started to dis Judges who ruled against him. Given the choice of the other conservatives on the Court, I prefer him to be the Chief over the others.
question everything
(47,476 posts)But now he can only be one of four.
One can only hope that Thomas and Alito should go to a superspreader event.
Rebl2
(13,498 posts)see Thomas gone. Cant believe hes just 73. Looks older than that.