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It is a myth that the Court is apolitical. It has been political since Roger Taney and many many decisions are made by it with an eye to public opinion and political pressure. Witness "the switch in time that saved nine" of the FDR court packing fight. The greatest Court of the last 100 years was the Warren Court and its massive expan…
It is a myth that the Court is apolitical. It has been political since Roger Taney and many many decisions are made by it with an eye to public opinion and political pressure. Witness "the switch in time that saved nine" of the FDR court packing fight. The greatest Court of the last 100 years was the Warren Court and its massive expansion of our rights and liberties was only possible because liberal public opinion and political power were in their full spring tide. Roe v Wade was the afterecho of that great wave of liberal jurisprudence and now we have a very very conservative Court reminiscent of the Lochner era. Woe betide us.
In Oct 2019 I saw Roberts at a synagogue in NYC. He is close friends with the head rabbi. There must have been about 1000 people in the sanctuary. The rabbi asked him a question about this very thing (SCOTUS & politics). Roberts, with a straight face, said the SCOTUS isn't political. There is nothing more vocal than a 1000 Jewish people in one building basically all groaning and saying BS.
If our wonderful Linda Greenhouse had been there she would have been one of the groaners! Perhaps the statement was aspirational, Justice Roberts knows well how that up to recent decades the Court has very much hesitated to outrage public sensibility and derived part of its legitimscy from steering a safe course. S. D. O'C's minimalism held the day off when the Court would generate an opinion like Alito's draft would be.
No, he was being willfully obtuse. As if he wasn't speaking to a bunch of people who knew better.
Indeed, thanks for adding more compelling big picture context; spot-on.