{"id":1773,"date":"2015-04-23T09:10:36","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T13:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hlpr\/?p=1773"},"modified":"2015-04-23T09:10:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T13:10:36","slug":"1773","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2015\/04\/23\/1773\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Judicial Activism: The Politicization of the Supreme Court Under Chief Justice Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

To mark the release of\u00a0Volume 9.1<\/a>, Notice & Comment will be highlighting\u00a0each of the articles in its own blog post. Today\u2019s featured article: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s\u00a0Conservative Judicial Activism: The Politicization of the Supreme Court Under Chief Justice Roberts<\/em><\/a>. Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) writes:<\/p>\n

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A troubling and unmistakable trend has developed over several decades, and accelerated in recent years, of extreme judicial activism within the conservative bloc of Justices on the Supreme Court\u2014reaching a new pinnacle under Chief Justice John Roberts.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Court\u2019s recent activism has advanced a pro-corporate agenda at the expense not only of injured Americans, but also of fundamental democratic institutions. The Court has exposed our elections to corruption and eroded fundamental protections, such as access to the ballot box. It has weakened the role of the civil jury, a constitutional institution intended to ensure equal- ity before the law and an important check in our unique American system of separated powers. The price of the Court\u2019s corporate agenda has been high.<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n

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This is admittedly a harsh indictment of the conservative activists. The purpose of this article is to provide a bill of particulars supporting that charge\u2014showing that the patterns to their decisions, and the strategies employed to achieve their results, suggest intentional and purposeful activism. This article will explore the means by which Chief Justice Roberts and the conservative bloc have furthered their agenda\u2014including selective adherence to traditional conservative principles, advance strategic planning to shape policy, and a failure to promote consensus\u2014and describe how the ends promote corporate and ideological interests at the expense of our democracy.<\/em><\/p>\n

In light of the major issues before the Supreme Court right now, such as King v. Burwell<\/a> on the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act, Senator Whitehouse’s concerns are especially relevant. Give it a read today!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To mark the release of\u00a0Volume 9.1, Notice & Comment will be highlighting\u00a0each of the articles in its own blog post. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[40,159,175,199],"class_list":["post-1773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-conservative-judicial-activism","tag-senator-whitehouse","tag-supreme-court","tag-volume-9-1"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/89\/2015\/04\/Untitled.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/seZQka-1773","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}