Posted on 04/18/2016 9:32:07 AM PDT by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON — The other day, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, decided to lecture Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Senate Republicans, Mr. Grassley said, were not to blame for the partisan deadlock over President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. The real culprits? The chief justice and his colleagues.
Mr. Grassley’s tongue-lashing, delivered on the Senate floor, was in response to an analysis in this column last month of the chief justice’s stance as Senate Republicans refuse to consider the nomination. Chief Justice Roberts has said, for instance, that partisan confirmation hearings feed a false public perception that justices cast their votes “as Democrats and Republicans,” rather than as neutral arbiters of the law.
Mr. Grassley offered a different take.
“The chief justice has it exactly backwards,” he said. “The confirmation process doesn’t make the justices appear political. The confirmation process has gotten political precisely because the court has drifted from the constitutional text and rendered decisions based instead on policy preferences.”
“Physician, heal thyself,” Mr. Grassley told the chief justice.
Mr. Grassley did not list the decisions that troubled him. But he did say that only two members of the court, presumably Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., “stick to the constitutional text and vote in a consistently conservative way.”
Mr. Grassley’s logic, if that is the right word, was that conservative decisions are apolitical but that liberal ones are partisan.
As for Chief Justice Roberts, Mr. Grassley said, “a number of his votes have reflected political considerations, not legal ones.” Again, the senator did not say which votes he was talking about, but they probably included ones rejecting challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Seriously, I applaud what Grassley said.
I believe that The Congress has the power to impeach Traitor Roberts.
I just wish that it had been Roberts and not Scalia. Robarts is another “gift” from the Booshes!
The Senate had an “advise and consent” role in the process. They have filled their role. They have advised there will be no consent.
Harry “Nuke Option” Reid has been quieter than one would expect. Maybe he is focused on taking as much graft as he can before he retires.
Can you imagine the Slimes writing a piece like this if it was a Democrat Senate "passing judgment" on a conservative Justice?
Grassley is dead right. Since Lincoln, the court has been politicized to be blind to the original intent of the Constitution and instead find in such a way as to support policy decisions. The General Welfare clause was interpreted correctly as specifying spending authority for the general welfare of the whole nation in areas already granted through enumerated powers prior to the Lincoln presidency. For example, the building of the Cumberland road to permit rapid military mobilization and reinforcement of the Western Territories.
Having the New York Times pretend that scotus judges (I refuse to call them ‘justice’) are apolitical is beyond dishonesty and all the way to depraved hypocrisy.
Grassley nails it.
Uh. That’s what senators do when they do their Constitutional duty and approve or decline SCOTUS nominees, you ignorant Lefties.
Well, Adam Liptak, it just turns out that using the Constitution as the standard for SCOTUS decisions is what the Court is SUPPOSED to do, and now that turns out to be conservative, because progressives choose to ignore this same Constitution in favor of ruling for the agenda of the progressives.
SCROTUS
About time!!!
“The chief justice has it exactly backwards,” he said. “The confirmation process doesn’t make the justices appear political. The confirmation process has gotten political precisely because the court has drifted from the constitutional text and rendered decisions based instead on policy preferences.”
So why the hell do jerks like GrASSly keep nominating people like Roberts, Soto-Mayor and Kagan?????????
Right. I meant confirming. Sorry. Didn’t know he voted against the other two clowns. Just ticked off he agreed to meet with Garland.
You are correct and the biggest scum of them all is Linda Graham, US Senator from SC who voted for one I know and maybe for both. Please, please, please good citizens of SC, vote this scumbag out of office.
“So why the hell do jerks like GrASSly keep nominating people like Roberts, Soto-Mayor and Kagan?????????”
Senators don’t nominate people for SCOTUS. The President does.
Get a handle on it.
I misstyped and corrected myself. Get a handle on it. The Gold Rush is over.
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