tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64275989314694490452024-03-13T22:02:50.213-07:00Balls, Strikes and Chief Justice RobertsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427598931469449045.post-27633550381619552302015-06-03T08:04:00.000-07:002016-01-20T13:45:47.445-08:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Balls, Strikes and Judicial Moderation of Chief
Justice Roberts<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">PTKAP<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">July 10, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If
we were to grade Chief Justice Roberts by his pronouncements on the role of a
judge, he would get high marks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, he
famously stated that if confirmed:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">"I will remember that it's my job to call
balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat</span></i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
was a promise, not only to the Senate but also to the American People. It was a
promise that, if confirmed, he would interpret the law not enact legislation in
the guise of judicial decisions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">More
recently, in his dissent in the 2015 <i>Obergefell</i>
case he criticized the majority opinion stating:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“But this
Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be
of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the
law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution
authorized courts to exercise ’neither force nor will but merely judgment’.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Consistent with these statements, Chief Justice. Roberts is
reported to consider himself a model of judicial restraint.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Notwithstanding
these high sentiments, the Roberts Court has evoked sharp criticism from
highly-knowledgeable sources. In response to the <i>Citizens United</i> decision, concerning financing of elections, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Professor Tribe of Harvard, certainly one of our most
distinguished living constitutional scholar, on or off the court, wrote that
the decision: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #242424; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>"...marks a major upheaval in First Amendment law and signals the
end of whatever legitimate claim could otherwise have been made by the Roberts
Court to an incremental and minimalist approach to constitutional adjudication,
to a modest view of the judicial role vis-à-vis the political branches, or to a
genuine concern with adherence to precedent" </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Professor
Waldman of NYU, in his book about gun rights
under the Second Amendment, used even stronger language referring to:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">"... a hostile
judiciary, misreading history, overinterpreting text, and imposing </span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>political views in the guise of judicial philosophy." </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Professor
Koppelman, of Northwestern University, commented specifically on Chief Justice.
Roberts (in a New Republic article):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“..Roberts is as much of a wild man as anyone on
the Court. He is distinctive in the things that make him wild. But if you push
the right buttons, restrained he isn't…</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The essence of Roberts’s restraint is this: He is less of a zealot
than his colleagues on his right. That isn’t saying much.” </span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">”</span></i><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
question then is whether Chief Justice Roberts has lived up to his rhetoric or
whether the criticisms of these distinguished professors are justified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let
us examine this question by looking at two constitutional cases, one concerning
voting rights and the other concerning the funding of electoral campaigns, both
touching the very sinews of our democracy. One case in 2013 <i>(Shelby County</i>) concerned the core
provision of the Voting Rights Act which was first enacted in 1965 to implement
the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution (a post Civil War amendment). The
second case in 2009 <i>(Citizens United)</i>
concerned the right of the government to restrict corporate political
expenditures<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">SHELBY COUNTY<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To
begin with <i>Shelby County</i>, the
fifteenth amendment states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">"<i>The
right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude<b>….</b>"</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was extended
several times. Because it had been found that prohibiting specific devices,
such as literacy tests, designed to discourage voting by African Americans, or
other minority groups, merely led to the creation of new devices, the act
employed a pre-clearance mechanism.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">States, or subdivisions of states, that
had a history of such discrimination became “covered jurisdictions” and could
not adopt new voting rules without obtaining a pre-clearance from the Federal
government.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2013 Chief Justice Roberts authored a
decision in the <i>Shelby County</i> case that,
in Justice Ginsburg's words, accomplished the "demolition" of that act,
one of the most successful civil-rights laws in the history of the republic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That he did so was hardly a surprise. Four
years earlier he had authored a decision (<i>Northwest
Austin</i>) concerning the interpretation, but not the constitutionality, of
that act. Despite the fact that the act's constitutionality was not being
decided, Chief </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Justice
Roberts seized the occasion strongly to suggest that the court well might be
ready to declare the act's pre-clearance requirement, or at least the list of
states and subdivisions of states required to obtain Federal pre-clearance of
changes to their voting laws, unconstitutional when an appropriate case came
before it. He stated:</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"...the Act imposes current burdens and must be justified
by current needs...The Act also differentiates between the States, despite our
historic tradition that all the States enjoy 'equal sovereignty'...a departure
from the fundamental principle of equal sovereignty requires a showing that a
statute’s disparate geographic coverage is sufficiently related to the problem
that it targets."</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is meant by these words? Stripped
of the flowery language (which tends to obscure meaning) the Chief Justice
seems to be saying that: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A law that imposes burdens, such as the
VRA pre-clearance requirement, must effectively address current problems, and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When such a law applies to some states
and not to others this must be justified by showing that the problems sought to
be corrected are worse in the targeted state than in other states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No one would argue with the sentiment
that legislation should be well designed to deal with the problems it seeks to
resolve. However, the chief Justice seems to be saying that if this is not the
case the law will be declared unconstitutional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Could he really be saying this? Article
1, sec.1 of the Constitution states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of
the United States</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cancelling legislation simply because it
is not working as well as it might is part of the legislative process. Alternatively,
Congress can decide that keeping old legislation in force, as here, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is the best option available to it. It would take an extraordinary set
of facts to merit judicial intervention in such a case. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Clearly, the congressional reenactment of the VRA
in 2006 was light years short of this level. The Chief Justice’s “current
burdens/current needs” test and his "equal sovereignty" test (neither
of which is mentioned in the Constitution) serve only to obscure this fact. They
are, in reality, merely slogans masquerading as constitutional principles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Chief Justice’s language was a
notably unsubtle invitation, and a road map, to the covered jurisdictions to
find one among them, that was not eligible to elect out of covered jurisdiction
status, to bring a suit, based on the Chief Justice’s “ tests”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The advice was followed. Shelby County,
Alabama was the chosen jurisdiction. It was an acknowledged sinner and thus was
ineligible to bail out of covered status. It brought a suit, tailored to the
Chief Justice's specifications, asking that the pre-clearance requirement be
declared unconstitutional and permanently inoperable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chief Justice Roberts and the four other
conservative justices surely were aware that a gridlocked Congress found itself
unable to agree on an updated list of covered jurisdictions in 2006. Faced with
this fact, the Congress overwhelmingly decided that continuing the old list
would benefit the nation better then letting the pre-clearance mechanism
expire. The members of congress had ample evidence that letting pre-clearance
expire would result in many minority citizens being deprived of the vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
2006 list of covered jurisdictions was passed after extensive hearing
demonstrated to the satisfaction of the legislators that the existing
pre-clearance list was still a valid classification and would continue to be
effective. For example:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Between 1982 and 2006, the Department of Justice objections
blocked over 700 voting changes based on a determination that the changes were
discriminatory. Congress found that the changes blocked by pre-clearance were
“calculated decisions to keep minority voters from fully participating in the
political process.” </span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The VRA, with its list of covered
jurisdictions, was adopted with a House vote of 390 to 33 and a Senate vote of
98 to 0. President Bush signed the bill calling it:</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “an example of our continued commitment to a
united America where every person is valued and treated with dignity and
respect.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By 2006, minority voting conditions in
the covered jurisdictions had vastly improved compared to 1965. Such conditions
were not worse in some of the covered jurisdictions than they were in some
non-covered jurisdictions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But it was apparent from the evidence
that Congress had amassed that this was not solely due to a change of
generations and of attitudes in the covered jurisdictions. It also was due to the operations and
dissuasive effect of the pre-clearance requirement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The report of the House Judiciary
Committee began with a lengthy summary of the improvement of voting conditions
in the covered jurisdictions since the act first was enacted in 1965 and went
on with an even lengthier summary of the extensive evidence that the act still
was needed in these jurisdictions to preserve those gains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Chief Justice Roberts, together with the four
other conservative justices, responded by holding that the particular list of
covered jurisdictions, which had been re-adopted by the congress in 2006, was
more than forty years old, was outmoded, did not fit the current situation in
the covered jurisdictions and its use therefore was unconstitutional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Chief Justice, borrowing heavily
from the first part of the report and paying little attention to the second
part, described a situation where the need was not present. Without ever being
explicit on the point, the Chief Justice described at some length the improved
state of minority voting in the covered jurisdictions as if it were a
satisfactory condition kept in being by the wishes of the state and local
governments concerned and not by continued oversight by the Federal government.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Without access to any facts unknown to
Congress, and not citing any known constitutional doctrine, Chief Justice
Roberts substituted the judgment of five lawyers to that of 488 members of
congress and the president of the United States. He held that Congress ‘finding
that the covered jurisdiction list remained a valid list was incorrect and that
its continued use would be unconstitutional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This decidedly was not calling balls and
strikes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Congress ‘action was a proper exercise
of the legislative power. That five justices voted to overturn it <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is little short of outrageous and calls
to mind Thomas </span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jefferson’s
words nearly 200 years earlier in a letter to William Jarvis:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You seem ... to consider the judges as the
ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine
indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy</span></i><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A COMPARISON<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It
is very difficult indeed to reconcile chief Justice Roberts ‘actions in the <i>Shelby County</i> matter with his admonition
of the majority in the <i>Obergefell</i>
case not to act as a legislature. In essence, in that case, the majority merely
held that the words of the Fourteenth Amendment:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“nor shall any State… deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">protection of the law”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">meant that same-sex couples were to have
equal rights to the benefits of laws
concerning marriage as are available to opposite-sex couples. That, at the very
least, is a reasonable interpretation of the words of the Constitution. One can
agree (as I do) or disagree with the decision, but it was not making law. It
was interpreting the words of the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let us make a side-by-side comparison of
Chief Justice Roberts’s view that the majority in <i>Obergefell</i> was legislating rather than making a judicial decision
and the assertion that he, and the four other conservative justices, overtly were
doing so in <i>Shelby County</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Obergefell<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Shelby County<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 261.9pt;" valign="top" width="349"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Invented two new
“constitutional tests” not mentioned in the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Equal protection of the law” means same-sex
couples are entitled to the same benefits of laws concerning marriage as are
opposite-sex couples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 12.6pt;" valign="top" width="17"><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 261.9pt;" valign="top" width="349"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Inserted those
“tests” in an opinion on another matter as an obvious invitation to bring a
suit attacking the VRA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 261.9pt;" valign="top" width="349"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">3.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Without citing
additional facts, declared that Congress wrongly decided that continuing the
existing list of covered jurisdictions was justified<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid black 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid black 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: text1; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-left-themecolor: text1; mso-border-right-themecolor: text1; mso-border-themecolor: text1; mso-border-top-alt: solid black .5pt; mso-border-top-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 261.9pt;" valign="top" width="349"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">4.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Held that the continued use of such list would
be unconstitutional<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have referred above to the Chief Justice’s
actions as injecting the court into the legislative process. Now I will go
further. Overruling the congressional finding was certainly one of the most
blatant examples of judicial legislation in the history of the Supreme Court,
one that justified Thomas Jefferson’s words nearly 200 years earlier in a
letter to William Jarvis:<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You seem ... to consider the judges as the
ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine
indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy</span></i><i><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The five justices had to know that
demolishing the VRA pre-clearance mechanism would result in many previously
covered jurisdictions adopting discriminatory voting legislation, and this
occurred. The Brennan Center for Justice of NYU School of Law reports:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“…most of the feared consequences have come to pass —
including attempts to: revive voting changes that were blocked as
discriminatory, move forward with voting changes previously deterred, and
implement new discriminatory voting restrictions.”</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">CITIZENS UNITED<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The second case for
our examination is the 2008 <i>Citizens
Union</i> case where Chief Justice Roberts, joined the four other conservative
justices (he did not write the opinion), in holding that the words of the first
amendment:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>"Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or
the press </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to mean that the government cannot restrict
the right of corporations to spend unlimited sums to support or oppose
candidates for public office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To
arrive at this astonishing result, the chief Justice and the four other
conservative justices had to find that corporations are people and that the
spending of money on elections is a form of speech. A holding so far removed
from the dictionary meanings of the words scarcely can be called the exercise
of judicial restraint or the calling of balls and strikes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
holding continues to do immense harm to our political system. The expressed
theory of the five justices who adopted it was that corporations acting
independently of any candidate should not be subject to governmental
limitations on their expenditures. Such independence is extremely easy to
counterfeit. The entirely predictable
result has been the birth of “Super Pacs sponsoring a single candidate, often
openly formed at the request of that candidate, and able to spend unlimited
sums to get the candidate elected <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
has made it nearly impossible for candidates to high office who do not have
access to huge funds to be elected. Reportedly, it has caused some members of
Congress to resign because they are faced with the necessity of spending much
of their time raising funds from their first day in office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The New York Times
of July 10, 2015 reports that Jeb Bush already has already raised more than
$114 million, almost all of it through a super pac that Mr. Bush’s aides helped
set up.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the
chief Justice, and the other four conservative justices did not foresee that
this would happen, they are exceedingly naïve. If they did foresee it, they
were willing to disregard he abysmal consequences. In either event, the
decision calls into question the correctness of their appointments to the
court. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
without doubt one of the worst decisions in the court’s history. Once more, it
recalls Jefferson’s comment which is quoted above.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">SOME ADDITIONAL COMMENTS</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After the end of the 2014-2015 Supreme Court
term some commentators detected a leftward trend on the court, citing </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">King v Burwell</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (upholding Obamacare from a malicious attack on tissue-thin
technical grounds) and Obergefell (according constitutional protection to
same-sex marriages). The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy voted with the four
liberal justices on the first and Justice Kennedy voted with them on the
second.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, that does not undo the fact that The
United States is a significantly less democratic country because of the <i>Citizens United</i> and <i>Shelby County</i> decisions, and that gun violence has become a daily
occurrence in the United States due, in large measure, to the 2006 overly-broad
reading of the second amendment by the chief Justice and the other four conservative
justices in the <i>Heller </i>case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The bottom line is clear. We are not
discussing a percentage game. Who would </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">patronize
a physician who prescribed helpful treatments 96% of the time but routinely did
his patients serious harm the other 4%?</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial black" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">oOo<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial black" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18.4667px; text-align: start;">PTKAP'S other blogs concerning the Roberts court, gun control and taxation are listed on:</span><u style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 18.4667px; text-align: start;">ptkapsblogindex.blogspot.com</u></span></div>
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