Roberts had a reputation of wanting his Court to maintain respect as a neutral party. I wish I could hear his private thoughts on the Court nowadays
This court has expressed and shown that it wont refrain from doing disruptive, inconvenient things and I haven't found any of its decisions to be contortions or surprising, after having read those decisions
I often feel like the narrative is the opposite of what I perceive, the media and people that want a different outcome say “they’re legislating from the bench!” when I see the prior court acting like a super congress with entire multipronged frameworks, and this court saying “yeaaaaahhh voters and elected representatives should decide that” whether there is a consensus failure or not, forcing consensus to be made where it was avoided indefinitely. I just dont see that as extreme, extreme would have been it using its privilege to say “yeah that's banned now across the whole republic” and they dont do that, its all quite professional
I dont know man, they are just waiting for someone to bring challenges to every remaining vestige of the New Deal and its expanded interpretation of interstate commerce, given that the 1930s court struck down most of the New Deal until it was threatened, I dont really find finishing the job to be so extreme, just unfamiliar because we were all raised post-New Deal
Its a "federal government" by name alone as there is no federalism left. Federalism could be interesting. It will have redundancies, wild differences. But that's the actual country we herald in our history books while we've done something else for the last 100 years.
The court has even expressed interest in going back further: revisiting the insular cases - the status of many of our territories and whether we should possess them at all - for reasons I find extremely universally agreeable, nowadays. If you read the SCOTUS decisions from 1901 they are super racist reasons why we have our territories. The only reason people would disagree is because they either haven't read them or they want to avoid the inconvenience. The constitution doesn't say "if its inconvenient ignore these articles, amendments and don't interpret me". Self determination is decided by the people of the territory in coordination with Congress.
so our radical court is going to undo racist rulings and disrupt an American colonizer streak? bring the cases, the challenge to a territory's status will probably even come from the left once people catch on with the most productive way to operate with this court
I get it, its a paradoxical standard, yes, its radical to do something we're all unfamiliar with. yes, a political entity with the adjective radical is a radical political entity. but are we using this in the colloquial way of illegitimate? no, not at all.
Are you arguing for the dismantling of Social Security? Medicare?
Are you arguing for Congress letting go of US territories to become their own sovereign countries? What if they want to remain part of the U.S.?
I’m arguing for more durable consensus. Look at the accession process of Texas versus a territory with Hispanics, Pacific Islanders or Asians, and see how many steps were done in the former versus how many were skipped in the latter. Do those steps and accept any outcome. I’m not arguing for any specific outcome of an areas status.
>This court has expressed and shown that it wont refrain from doing disruptive, inconvenient things and I haven't found any of its decisions to be contortions or surprising, after having read those decisions
You mean like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_era
The immediate period before the new deal era that is universally ridiculed by every member of the Court today?
Its a predictive quality, instead of one based on feelings. Until I bring a case myself, I’m not arguing or advocating for anything, just listening far better than someone using their energy to protest something they have no control over.
Your example, although I consider it a strawman, I think also shows that even what people believe about this current court is not unique. If they dont like this court, they really wouldnt have liked that court.
It seems like most of their headline-worthy actions have been reversing the times that the court did not act as a neutral party in the past.
This is false. The Roberts court has overruled previous decisions less often than previous courts, not more often. It will have one of the thinnest chapters in the history books, not one of the thickest.
The Burger court overruled more decisions from 1969 to 1975 than the Roberts court has since it began in 2005. The Warren court has the thickest chapter in the history books. It overruled decisions at a higher rate than even the Burger court.
I am guessing that the real difference is that you agree with the major decisions of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, and disagree with the major decisions of the Roberts court.
Sure, that helps make my point, thanks.
Planned Parenthood v. Casey overturned parts of Roe v. Wade. That was in 1992 under the Rehnquist court. If overturning precedence is bad, the Rehnquist court is bad for overturning parts of Roe v. Wade.
Don’t believe it did. Feel free to explain. You know I’m referring to Dobbs and the implied chevron defense overturning in a short period after that political makeup of the court fundamentally changed.
That said, I'm not sure where someone could come to the conclusion that the court should remain neutral when courts, especially the Supreme Court, mark the point where a dispute is resolved not in terms of how to follow the existing law, but why the existing law is the way it is, and whether it should be patchedto reflect a new understanding of why our values are what they are. The "correct" place to do this is of course in the legislature, but it moves on a comparatively glacial time frame and in some cases can never come to a clear actionable position on issues in a timely manner, while harms are actively taking place without remedy.
The neutral stance is implicitly conservative, disregarding changes in our understanding of why we value what we value, and instead focusing on mechanical details of how to paper over ever widening disparities, constantly pointing at the legislature to sort them out. If the court had the power to force legislature to come to a decision one way or the l other it would be different I suppose, but this would of course put the Court under the legislature, defeating the purpose of separated powers.
I acknowledge that the issue is quite complex. still from the outside, to put it bluntly, his stance looks like a rationalization to shirk an essential responsibility he has been uniquely entrusted with.