"With his third term as chief justice coming to a close amid a trio of explosive cases last week, John Roberts Jr. [JR] has proven to be almost everything conservatives hoped and liberals feared. ... 'I come before this committee with no agenda, no platform,' Roberts told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2005. 'I will approach every case with an open mind.' Roberts branded himself then as a judicial 'umpire' who called the balls and strikes as he saw them without reference to ideology. ... The Supreme Court in 2007 scaled back the reach of civil rights laws in school affirmative action cases, upheld the federal 'partial-birth' abortion ban, and limited the ability of women to file equal-pay claims. ... In his three years on the court Roberts has never sided with the more liberal members of the court aginst his conservative brethren in a close case", James Oliphant at the Houston Chronicle, 29 June 2008.
I believe JR had no judicial "ideology" when he told the Senate that and never had one. He is an advocate. JR was a Hogan & Hartson partner and still is. He has and always had an agenda: whatever big business wants is good. JR apparently reads and rereads part of what "Engine Charlie" said in 1952, see my 5 October 2007 post. I think JR a judicial disgrace. He personifies why I favor a constitutional amendment to discipline our "judicial tyrants", they are politicians, pure and simple. They should have to justify their "rulings" to the people. In 1986 Rose Bird (RB), California Chief Justice, faced an election. RB ruled against upholding a death penalty in 61 of 61 cases she reviewed. RB, Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin were removed from California's Supreme Court for failure to uphold the death penalty. RB's rulings showed, a judge can always concoct a "reason". It's about time Americans were enabled to clean up our Supreme "stable", uh, Court.
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