On many questions involving federalism, Roberts's views resemble those of Rehnquist rather than O'Connor, and, in this sense, he would not change the balance of the Court. And, in other areas of concern to liberals--such as his willingness to uphold precedents with which he disagrees--Roberts may turn out to be more concerned about judicial stability and humility than either Rehnquist or O'Connor, which suggests he might even move the Court to the left.
-- Jeffrey Rosen, 9/12/05
This term, Chief Justice John Roberts fully agreed with Justice Samuel Alito in 92 percent of the nonunanimous Supreme Court cases in which he voted. His rate of total agreement was 89 percent with Justice Antonin Scalia and 85 percent with Justice Clarence Thomas. (The stats are courtesy of the good folks at Scotusblog.) Any hope liberals and moderates had that the Roberts court would be modest in its ambition were dashed this week with the parade of 5-4 decisions (conservatives win, liberal-moderates lose). Roberts wrote today's decision to scrap two school-district plans that took race into account in sorting students among different public schools. Earlier this week, he wrote opinions that cut back on students' free-speech rights and gutted key provisions of McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. He has also been part of the five-justice majority that upheld the federal "partial-birth" abortion law, told Keith Bowles that he could not appeal his death sentence because he'd filed a day late—based on the say-so of a federal judge—and precluded Lilly Ledbetter from suing for discrimination because she waited too long to bring suit, never mind that her low pay was ongoing.
All of which is to say that John Roberts is proving to be an extremely conservative chief justice.
-- Emily Bazelon, today
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