Posted on 02/14/2016 6:32:22 PM PST by Helicondelta
Ted Cruz has claimed a special skill at judging would-be Supreme Court nominees--but his praise of Justice Roberts in 2005 might call his judgment into question as the debate on who will replace Justice Antonin Scalia begins.
At tonight's Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz tried valiantly to distance himself from his support for John Roberts's confirmation to the Supreme Court. But correspondence with his staff in the Texas solicitor general's office shows Cruz was just as enthusiastic as anyone about Roberts's prospects on the high court.
And though Cruz argued tonight that only he will have the special prescience necessary to pick SCOTUS nominees that will keep conservatives happy, his history of loving Roberts belies that. Roberts, of course, was the deciding vote in a 2012 Supreme Court case that upheld the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate--essentially ending the debate about the constitutionality of Obamacare.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Cruz OpEd: John Roberts Should Be A Quick Confirm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3396866/posts
Eh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think anyone thought Roberts would turn out the way he did.
Frankly, I think somebody has something on Roberts. Live boy or dead girl type of thing, knowwhadimean?
Let’s be fair: I don’t think Cruz or anyone else could have foreseen Roberts being blackmailed into his Obamacare decision.
I think that too. He had to adopt...
Cruz LIES again:
"If Trump is elected the Second Amendment could be 'written out of the Constitution.'"
Seriously dude, WTF???— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) February 14, 2016
Replacing Scalia is like replacing Reagan.
It can’t be done.
Those men came from another place that no longer exists.
Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, but I know that we are never going to return to where they came from.
Remember when Roberts fled the freaking country to Malta after his disastrous decision? Bizarre. Describing this as extremely questionable behavior would be accurate.
What a dumbass argument. The only reason Trump didn’t support Roberts is because he doesn’t even understand the role of a Judge. Every conservative who understands the
Courts supported Roberts. Did he betray us? Yes. But conservatives would not have seen it coming.
Trump's sister was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan.
So now Cruzers are bashing Trump for praising his sister?
LOL
Stupid headline. How about:
At One Time, The Right Loved the Justice That Betrayed Them
More honest.
I think that regarding John Roberts, all conservatives that endorsed him should remember the “fool me once...”.
“conservatives would not have seen it coming.”
Wrong.
Roberts aided landmark case on gay rights / His pro bono work helped activists win Supreme Court ruling
http://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/Roberts-aided-landmark-case-on-gay-rights-His-2650380.php
I thought he illegally adopted his kids from Ireland.
You can indict the entire party on Roberts, same with O’Connor.
This is a useless post.
This is coming from The Daily Beast so it’s just a liberal hit job on Cruz.
And can you find where Trump raised the alarm about this?
Always trust hearsay about gay rights shit when you read it on SF Gate. It's BOUND to be true. Especially when close sources are mentioned. How close, I wonder, but I'll let your head grapple with the images.
And you were too smart to be fooled by his earlier performance on the bench?
Early decisions
On January 17, 2006, Roberts dissented along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in Gonzales v. Oregon, which held that the Controlled Substances Act does not allow the United States Attorney General to prohibit physicians from prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by an Oregon law. The point of contention in the case was largely one of statutory interpretation, not federalism.
On March 6, 2006, Roberts wrote the unanimous decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights that colleges accepting federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Clinton administration-initiated “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Fourth Amendment
Roberts wrote his first dissent in Georgia v. Randolph (2006). The majority’s decision prohibited police from searching a home if both occupants are present but one objected and the other consented. Roberts criticized the majority opinion as inconsistent with prior case law and for partly basing its reasoning on its perception of social custom. He said the social expectations test was flawed because the Fourth Amendment protects a legitimate expectation of privacy, not social expectations.[45]
Notice and opportunity to be heard
Although Roberts has often sided with Scalia and Thomas, Roberts provided a crucial vote against their position in Jones v. Flowers. In Jones, Roberts sided with liberal justices of the court in ruling that, before a home is seized and sold in a tax-forfeiture sale, due diligence must be demonstrated and proper notification needs to be sent to the owners. Dissenting were Anthony Kennedy along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Samuel Alito did not participate, while Roberts’s opinion was joined by David Souter, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Abortion
On the Supreme Court, Roberts has indicated he supports some abortion restrictions. In Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), the only significant abortion case the court has decided since Roberts joined, he voted with the majority to uphold the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, distinguished Stenberg v. Carhart, and concluded that the court’s previous decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey did not prevent Congress from banning the procedure. The decision left the door open for future as-applied challenges, and did not address the broader question of whether Congress had the authority to pass the law.[46] Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, contending that the Court’s prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Casey should be reversed; Roberts declined to join that opinion.
Equal protection clause
Roberts opposes the use of race in assigning students to particular schools, including for purposes such as maintaining integrated schools.[47] He sees such plans as discrimination in violation of the constitution’s equal protection clause and Brown v. Board of Education.[47][48] In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, the court considered two voluntarily adopted school district plans that relied on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. The court had held in Brown that “racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional,”[49] and later, that “racial classifications, imposed by whatever federal, state, or local governmental actor, ... are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests,”[50] and that this “[n]arrow tailoring ... require[s] serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives.”[51] Roberts cited these cases in writing for the Parents Involved majority, concluding that the school districts had “failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals.”[52] In a section of the opinion joined by four other Justices, Roberts added that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Free speech
Roberts authored the 2007 student free speech case Morse v. Frederick, ruling that a student in a public school-sponsored activity does not have the right to advocate drug use on the basis that the right to free speech does not invariably prevent the exercise of school discipline.[53]
On April 20, 2010, in United States v. Stevens, the Supreme Court struck down an animal cruelty law. Roberts, writing for an 8-1 majority, found that a federal statute criminalizing the commercial production, sale, or possession of depictions of cruelty to animals, was an unconstitutional abridgment of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Court held that the statute was substantially overbroad; for example, it could allow prosecutions for selling photos of out-of-season hunting.[54]
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