Lilly, Cocca: Chief Justice Roberts follows another Justice Roberts
Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts participates in the court's official photo session in this file photo at the Supreme Court in Washington. Roberts, the conservative-leaning leader of the court appointed by former U.S. President George W. Bush, was the key swing vote in the court's decision to largely uphold President Barack Obama's health care law. (Oct. 8, 2010) Credit: Getty Images
At a point at which the majority of the American people had come to view the Supreme Court as just another partisan battleground, Chief Justice Roberts' decision to cross party lines and uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is an important step to restoring the court's credibility as an institution.
In addition, Roberts' opinion decides the issue before the court on the narrowest ground possible, thus adhering to the important legal principle of judicial restraint and deference to the elected branches of government.
Chief Justice Roberts’ decision to show judicial restraint is eerily similar to the decision made by another Justice Roberts during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. Before 1937, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority had struck down numerous parts of the New Deal, 5 to 4. In 1937, exactly 75 years ago, in a case called West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, one of those five conservatives, Justice Owen Roberts, began to vote with the four more liberal members of the Court and upheld challenged New Deal programs from that point on.
Justice Owen Roberts' seeming shift was called the “Switch in Time that Saved Nine.” Chief Justice John Roberts, in 2012, has saved The Nine again.
Thomas Lilly Jr. is assistant professor of the Department of Politics, Economics and Law at SUNY Old Westbury. Carolyn Cocca is the department's chair.
