Hey, David, we've seen John Roberts side with the liberals twice now, once to not end Dacca.
And this week with the liberals on abortion, is John Roberts actually a moderate justice?
Has he become more moderate?
Beautiful question.
This is really, really important.
We've heard in the wake of these two decisions from the Supreme Court where John Roberts
was against ending DACA and against requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting
privileges at local hospitals.
And these were decisions where John Roberts was with the liberals, so to speak.
So I want to look at two things here.
What do these decisions mean about John Roberts politics?
But first, where is John Roberts politically, ideologically in terms of justices?
There is a chart that uses a scale of plus eight, meaning ultra conservative, down to
minus eight, meaning ultra liberal four Supreme Court justices.
This is something that's done by Roberts and Quinn.
I'm sorry.
Martin and Quinn on that scale.
John Roberts started his Supreme Court career at a one point five, meaning on the right,
but not as on the right as Clarence Thomas, for example, he was a one point five and John
Roberts, based on his decisions, has been moved down to zero point five.
So he went from one point five to zero point five zero would be a perfect moderate.
So John Roberts, according to Martin and Quinn, has moderated since joining the Supreme Court.
OK, for comparison, Clarence Thomas is like between a three and a four.
Much more conservative.
Samuel Alito has gotten more conservative.
He's gone from a one point five to like more than a two.
So it does appear as though John Roberts is certainly more moderate than some of those
other justices.
And John Roberts has moved a little more to the middle since joining the court.
Here's the real important question, though.
What do these specific decisions mean about John Roberts ideology?
And it really doesn't mean much.
And here's what I mean by that.
These were mostly technical decisions where John Roberts was with the liberals.
So on Dacca.
John Roberts didn't weigh in at all on the merits of DACA or the legality of Dacca in
some broader way.
The Trump administration brought a very bad case against Dacca.
The case the Trump administration made was essentially Obama didn't have the authority
to do Dacca.
The court rejected that argument.
The court said, merits aside, Obama did have the authority to do this.
Roberts sided with the liberal justices there on a technical matter.
And in fact, it should have been nine zero like it was such an obvious, easy decision.
This was just a bad technical argument from the Trump administration.
It should have been nine nothing.
Roberts was with the liberals for technical reasons.
Similarly, this week in the abortion case in Louisiana, what the court found in its
majority decision and John Roberts was on the side with the liberals and wrote the majority
opinion was that if you require abortion, doctors better, said doctors who perform abortions.
I try to avoid that term.
Abortion doctors, doctors who perform abortions if you require them to have admitting privileges
at certain hospitals.
You are, in a technical sense, violating Roe v. Wade, which is precedent.
It's established law.
And for that technical reason, John Roberts was with the liberals.
It was not about the merits of abortion, the morality of abortion or anything else.
So the good news is that compared to the real ideologues, Thomas Cavanagh, Gorsuch, etc.,
John Roberts is not so ideologically biased that he will even get the technical decisions
wrong.
That's a good thing.
The reality is we still need to do way better than Roberts and we certainly need to do better
than Gorsuch and Cavenagh.
And that's why one of the important reasons for removing Donald Trump and putting in Joe
Biden remains choice is to the Supreme Court and selection's to lower courts as well.
We've got a great Bonas show for you today, producer Pat.
We'll be taking over the reins.
I will be back with you on Monday.
We are taking Friday off as a sort of extended Fourth of July holiday.
And then we're back fully full power.
On Monday.
I'll see you then.