Peter1469
06-28-2013, 04:16 PM
And why not, he isn't even 60 yet. He could be Chief (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/us/politics/roberts-plays-a-long-game.html?_r=0)for another two decades.
Basically, Roberts is getting the left side of the court to make consensions in exchange for him moving towards the left. And then when the same issue comes before the court later, he will cite the the old decision to lock them down and drag them further to the right.
After the Obamacare case, a commentator said that J. Roberts was playing chess while others are playing checkers.
Chief Justice Roberts has proved adept at persuading the court’s more liberal justices to join compromise opinions, allowing him to cite their concessions years later as the basis for closely divided and deeply polarizing conservative victories.
His patient and methodical approach has allowed him to establish a robustly conservative record while ranking second only to Justice Anthony Kennedy as the justice most frequently in the majority.
“This court takes the long view,” said Kannon K. Shanmugam (http://www.wc.com/kshanmugam), a lawyer with Williams & Connolly in Washington. “It proceeds in incremental steps.”
Some examples:
On Tuesday, when the court struck down a part of the Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice Roberts harvested seeds he had planted four years before. In his 2009 opinion (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-322.ZS.html), writing for eight justices, he allowed the Voting Rights Act to stand. But the price he exacted from the court’s liberal wing was language quoted in Tuesday’s decision that seems likely to ensure the demise of the law’s centerpiece, Section 5, which requires federal oversight of states with a history of discrimination.
Last year, in the second-biggest surprise of his decision upholding President Obama’s health care law (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEoQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supremecourt.gov%2FSearch.asp x%3FFileName%3D%2Fdocketfiles%2F11-393.htm&ei=oafMUeCyErKu4AOP0IDQAQ&usg=AFQjCNGvgghFSESs0YkySjmuheojL7Uwpw&sig2=NrnwWPltsE1CvP7A56h5gA&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmg), Chief Justice Roberts persuaded two liberal justices to join the part of his opinion allowing states to opt out of the law’s expansion of Medicaid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). That ruling has added significant complications to the rollout of the law.
Only the justices know their motives and arrangements, but there is a pattern here. The price of victory today for liberals in the Roberts court can be pain tomorrow.
Basically, Roberts is getting the left side of the court to make consensions in exchange for him moving towards the left. And then when the same issue comes before the court later, he will cite the the old decision to lock them down and drag them further to the right.
After the Obamacare case, a commentator said that J. Roberts was playing chess while others are playing checkers.
Chief Justice Roberts has proved adept at persuading the court’s more liberal justices to join compromise opinions, allowing him to cite their concessions years later as the basis for closely divided and deeply polarizing conservative victories.
His patient and methodical approach has allowed him to establish a robustly conservative record while ranking second only to Justice Anthony Kennedy as the justice most frequently in the majority.
“This court takes the long view,” said Kannon K. Shanmugam (http://www.wc.com/kshanmugam), a lawyer with Williams & Connolly in Washington. “It proceeds in incremental steps.”
Some examples:
On Tuesday, when the court struck down a part of the Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice Roberts harvested seeds he had planted four years before. In his 2009 opinion (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-322.ZS.html), writing for eight justices, he allowed the Voting Rights Act to stand. But the price he exacted from the court’s liberal wing was language quoted in Tuesday’s decision that seems likely to ensure the demise of the law’s centerpiece, Section 5, which requires federal oversight of states with a history of discrimination.
Last year, in the second-biggest surprise of his decision upholding President Obama’s health care law (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEoQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supremecourt.gov%2FSearch.asp x%3FFileName%3D%2Fdocketfiles%2F11-393.htm&ei=oafMUeCyErKu4AOP0IDQAQ&usg=AFQjCNGvgghFSESs0YkySjmuheojL7Uwpw&sig2=NrnwWPltsE1CvP7A56h5gA&bvm=bv.48572450,d.dmg), Chief Justice Roberts persuaded two liberal justices to join the part of his opinion allowing states to opt out of the law’s expansion of Medicaid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). That ruling has added significant complications to the rollout of the law.
Only the justices know their motives and arrangements, but there is a pattern here. The price of victory today for liberals in the Roberts court can be pain tomorrow.