Chief Justice Roberts...

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Dracon II
I have a couple of questions/observations about the US Supreme Court and Chief Justice Roberts.

What powers does a Chief Justice have over his counterparts? Isn't a majority all that is needed for a ruling?

And shouldn't the chief justice be drawn from the existing ranks of justices? It would seem that this would be better, given that it would mean the Chief Justice would have prior experience on the bench.

And I must say that it was smart of Bush to nominate someone so young... you'll be stuck with Roberts for a long time, methinks...

He swears in the president for one thing.

[civman2000]

Here's my view of the ideologies of the Justices, from liberal to conservative (spaced to reflect ideological distance):
Stevens

Breyer Ginsburg
Souter


O'Connor
Kennedy



Rehnquist

Thomas
Scalia


Where you draw the line between liberal and conservative is a matter of taste. I would call Stevens a liberal, Breyer-Ginsburg-Souter weak liberals/centrists, O'Connor-Kennedy moderate conservatives, and the rest strong conservatives. Since the appointment of Marshall in 1967, the only appointment that has moved the court to the left was Ginsburg (and possibly now Roberts). This is understandable, since only two justices have been appointed by democrats since then. However, even though many of the republicans' appointees have been less conservative than they wanted, all of them have been more conservative than their predecessors.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Dracon II
What powers does a Chief Justice have over his counterparts? Isn't a majority all that is needed for a ruling?

He appoints the judges that sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

[snoopy369]

I'd like to suggest that there's a bit of a problem with how you all are defining conservative and liberal.

Those two words mean much different things when you are applying them to SCOTUS justices than to presidents and such.

Excepting a very few justices (Scalia ...), the justices don't tend to have a significant effect based on their 'political' stance. IE, there are very few cases where the 'political' stances matter - nearly every case the SCOTUS takes is decided by the legal ideology of the justices, not their political stance.

Most SCOTUS cases are decided by whether judges are:
* Federalist or Nationalist [state's rights vs federal rights]
and
* Strict Constructionists vs Broad Constructionists ["what the constitution says/makers intended" vs "living constitution"]

Roberts is pretty clearly a strict constructionist, and probably a federalist, though I'm not as confident about the second [prefers state rights to national government laws, and prefers to read the constitution as it is rather than assuming things have changed].

"Conservatives" in the judicial sense has, recently, come to mean exactly what Roberts is - strict constructionist, and federalist. This is not significantly different from Rehnquist, iirc. Roberts proves both with his answer to Roe v Wade - it's a wrong decision, because the federal government has no power to say whether individual states can make that law or not. He's a federalist, leading him to think that states should decide issues that aren't specifically in the constitution, and he's a strict constr.ist, leading him to believe that the constitution doesn't say anything about abortion - whatsoever - so the SCOTUS has no power to allow or disallow the practice; simply that it allows whatever the states individually believe is right to continue.

Sandra Day O'Connor IIRC has become less of both of these things as time goes on. Souter and Bader-Ginsburg are definitely broad constructionists and nationalists - supporting federal gov't power over the states in many places Roberts, Scalia, etc. wouldn't; and arguing that they understand the constitution in different ways than it directly reads (literally).

Stevens is sort of ... interesting. He's a liberal in a lot of ways, but he's something of a strict constructionist sometimes as well (such as with the recent ruling deciding that states have the right to eminent domain for private gain). Stevens wrote the majority decision, and oddly enough was joined by the most liberal judges - all of them - as well as the deciding vote, Kennedy, in supporting state's rights to eminent domain over property holders even when they allow a private entity to profit. Essentially a bunch of liberal justices supporting rich guys over poor guys, and Scalia sounding buddy-buddy with the NAACP. Who'd have thought...

... thus leaving me to believe that the justices are more complex than any of us see.

ANYwho, my point is that the reason conservative Republicans seem to appoint sometimes-liberal justices often is that people who are 'conservative' politically often aren't 'conservative' judically - and those two things just don't line up.

What Bush probably will do - again - is find someone more-or-less-neutral politically, and who is a strict federalist and strict constructionist. That'll solidify that part of the court. It won't get Roe v Wade overturned - even Bush knows that's never going to happen - but it will solidify the more philosophical area of conservatives in this country, which is:
* The US was better in the 19th century. None of this 'income tax' crap or 'welfare' ... just a group of states getting along fairly well, minus that whole 1860s thing.
* States should decide what's best for them ... except on certain things, but those are clearly in the constitution anyway.
* Prayer and things like that in schools ... well, maybe not IN the school, but the constitution doesn't say a lot of things about prayer that's not government mandated. Hah.

I bet you the prayer in schools thing is really where they're going. That's where the Religious Right has the most to gain realistically - and by using Roe v Wade as a red herring, nominating justices that can really claim they won't overturn RvW, but making sure everyone focuses on such, they'll slip by with justices that are strict enough of constructionists that they'll read specifically "Congress shall make no law" etc. and thus very rarely support people trying to ban prayers

[Dracon II]

What about the fairly broad scope that the "interstate commerce" clause came to encompass? Are there any challenges to that? A reinterpretation of that would have more far reaching consequences than prayer in school or abortion.

[SpencerH]

If he's in the majority, the chief justice gets to say who writes the opinion.

[DanS]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
He appoints the judges that sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Didn't know that. Neat!

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Dracon II
What about the fairly broad scope that the "interstate commerce" clause came to encompass? Are there any challenges to that?

Not sure there are any lurking on the dockets at the moment, but Rehnquist's "New Federalism" took some steps to reign it in (U.S. v. Lopez, for instance). I'd expect to see Roberts follow the same path as much as he's able.

A reinterpretation of that would have more far reaching consequences than prayer in school or abortion.

Dead on. And a shame more Americans don't realize that. We're forever doomed to have our leaders elected on unimportant issues such as those two, flag burning and gay marraige.

[OzzyKP]

The court has been chipping away at the commerce clause over the last couple years. Hopefully that'll continue when the new folks get seated, and hopefully they'll get a bigger hammer.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I bet you the prayer in schools thing is really where they're going. That's where the Religious Right has the most to gain realistically - and by using Roe v Wade as a red herring, nominating justices that can really claim they won't overturn RvW, but making sure everyone focuses on such, they'll slip by with justices that are strict enough of constructionists that they'll read specifically "Congress shall make no law" etc. and thus very rarely support people trying to ban prayers

I doubt it. Roberts who has been pledging his respect for precedent will run into a FAR greater hurdle in prayer in school, which has been absolutely banned for far longer than abortion was declared a substantive due process right.

And IIRC, the votes on prayer in public schools aren't all the close. The only place they MAY make a difference is in a moment of silent reflection or something... but out and out prayer? No chance.

What about the fairly broad scope that the "interstate commerce" clause came to encompass? Are there any challenges to that?

Of course there are. It's definetly a 'conservative' issue and Roberts, being a Rehnquist disciple will continue his narrowing of the interstate commerce clause.

[Ben Kenobi]

you know... Fez describes himself as "center-right"

Funny thing is that I don't.