Many of us are noting that the current Supreme Court, thanks in large part to its heavy-handed right and its lyin’-cheatin’ chief justice, is losing Congress’ confidence. Finally.
Like it or not, today is when the court may “revisit” Citizens United. Not reverse their decision or anything satisfactory like that, just “revisit.” And today we read that “meanwhile, the role of Chief Justice John Roberts in the case is also raising questions in Congress.”
“The court got way, way, way ahead of its skis here,” says Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat. He has filed a friend of the court brief demanding the high court reverse its Citizens United decision.
“It was a decision they were so eager to make but not I think they’re embarrassed by the wild discrepancy between the world as they presumed it in their written decision and the world as we see it around us, post Citizens United,” he says.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican who co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold law, voted to confirm Roberts as chief justice. McCain now has regrets.
“I am more disappointed in him than any of the other four that voted to overturn McCain-Feingold,” McCain says.
At his confirmation hearing nearly seven years ago, Roberts compared judges to umpires: They don’t make the rules, he said, they apply them.
“Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath,” Roberts said.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter was the Republican chairing that hearing. Now a Democrat, Specter says Roberts has made a complete U-turn.
“There’s no doubt that in Citizens United, Chief Justice Roberts did not follow what he described as modesty, a nonactivism or not giving a jolt to the system,” Specter says. “Citizens United was a tremendous jolt to the system.” …NPR
Hang ‘im high, fellas.