“If it is not necessary to decide more to a case, then in my view it is necessary not to decide more to a case. Division should not be artificially suppressed, but the rule of law benefits from a broader agreement. The broader the agreement among the justices, the more likely it is a decision on the narrowest possible grounds.” In a Georgetown commencement address, new Chief Justice John Roberts expounds on his view of the job after eight months. Well, we’ll see when those next few decisions come in.
One thought on “Roberts: Go Along to Get Along.”
Comments are closed.
Roberts is a smart guy… he knows that the Court has the most legitimacy (and engenders the least opposition) when it rules unanimously. Part of the reason why conservatives have mounted such fierce opposition to Roe over the years, and fight for the courts in general, is that they’ve always felt it was a tenuous 4-3 decision that could be overturned if they got a couple of “their guys” in there. Or, Roberts knows that back in the 20s lawyers were fired up calling for judicial elections when a divided Court was striking down minimum wage laws. He wants no part of that.
Roberts will quietly and steadily write modest opinions over the years with a few footnotes pushing the Court rightward (note the Solomon Amendment case where he threw in an aside about Congress’ ability to legislate trumping the First Amendment when national security is at stake… nobody ever talked about that before, it was always in the context of the executive), and build upon those over the course of the next 25 years to create a body of very, very conservative jurisprudence that will stand up for a long time (precisely because it will fly under the radar of the general public).