According to the New York Times, based on an analysis of four sets
of political science data, now after five terms, Chief Justice John
Roberts' Supreme Court is "the most conservative one in living memory."
During this time, the Roberts court "issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time" and, in the last year, that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953.
As Jeffrey Toobin noted last year in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.
Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party."
And now with the additional
appointment of Alito, Bush moved the Supreme Court so far to the right
that some are wondering when they're going to repeal the minimum wage
and child labor laws, as the last uber-conservative court did about 100
years ago.
Given that the Supreme Court is the most powerful of the three branches of government - the result of their taking onto themselves a power not given them in the Constitution, the power to declare laws unconstitutional which they asserted in 1803 - it becomes ever more important that there be a Democrat in the White House over the next two terms when it becomes increasingly likely that one of the conservative members of the court will retire.
During this time, the Roberts court "issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time" and, in the last year, that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953.
As Jeffrey Toobin noted last year in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.
Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party."
Given that the Supreme Court is the most powerful of the three branches of government - the result of their taking onto themselves a power not given them in the Constitution, the power to declare laws unconstitutional which they asserted in 1803 - it becomes ever more important that there be a Democrat in the White House over the next two terms when it becomes increasingly likely that one of the conservative members of the court will retire.
