Chief Justice Roberts Remarks on State of the Union

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently addressed students at the Univ. of Alabama Law School followed by audience questions. In response to a student, Justice Roberts said the Senate's confirmation process for federal judges is broken down and stated that Pres. Obama's State of the Union speech degenerated into a political pep rally.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• C-SPAN
• Chief Justice Roberts
• President Obama
• State of the Union

[McDonald12345]

@McDonald12345

If Roberts stepped down, there is absolutely no way you would see Obama nominating Scalia to be the Chief Justice. Kennedy? Maybe, but that is only because he is viewed to be of a far more moderate judicial temperance. Thomas? No way for the same reasons as Scalia. Ginsburg? Too old and soon to retire. Breyer? Same as GInsburg. Alito? No chance. So the only ones left are Kagan and Sotomayor. Either would be more likely than the more senior "conservative" justices.

[McDonald12345]

@MrWsad

That's just simply not true. Look at the Supreme Court timeline. The only Chief Justice that has been elevated from an Associate Justice position in the last 80 years is Rehnquist. Rehnquist was nominated over the more senior Brennan, Blackmun, Marshall, and White.

Now it may be true that, prior to FDR, when the Supreme Court was views as much less a political body that seniority had a much larger influence on who would be nominated. But that's not the case today.

[MrWsad]

@McDonald12345 Associate justices aren't oftenly elevated to position of chief justice, rather a new person is nominated to be chief justice but when associate justice is elevated to position of chief justice it's usually the most senior associate.

[McDonald12345]

@MrWsad

The Chief Justice isn't selected based on length of tenure. If that were the case, Roberts wouldn't be Chief Justice. He was the newest member of the Court (although he was quickly followed by Alito). The President nominates the Chief Justice. Thus, if Roberts did leave while Obama was in office it would very likely be one of the younger, more liberal members of the Court, i.e. Kagan or Sotomayor, or whomever he nominated to replace Roberts.

[huskerthad1]

I agree that Sotomayor will not be Chief Justice, but, why would Roberts leave? and Kennedy will never be, if he would have been it would have been when Roberts joined the court.

[MrWsad]

@TheJudgeMan1 Sotomayor wouldn't become chief justice. Kenney or Scalia would become Chief Justices because they were in the court longer. P.S. Sotomayor is a fucking retard and shouldn't even be a judge.

[TheJudgeMan1]

this corporatist neocon! he just sold our elective representatives to multi national corporations! i wish he would just vanish into thin air and Sotomayor would become the chief justice.

[TheJudgeMan1]

@danmol78 yea, they booed a little. not as disgusting as heckling a president. but again, dems can never do that. they dont have any balls to stand up to a corporatist moron like George Bush, who graduated school because of his daddy.

[electango]

Calling you gay? You're not gay? You're way too obsessed with homoeroticic imagery to be straight. You're so obsessed with homoerotic imagery, you cannot even discuss reasonably pertinent issues. Regarding your Socialist agenda--it's going nowhere. Pelosi is toast as is Senator Reid. And President Wonderboy is too lazy to do anything alone.

[Townclownsunite]

@electango -- Cry me a river.  We will carry on the great Socialist agenda that you right-wing paranoids accuse us of. You can call people gay all you want but you are still and always will be a ..... cock sucker.