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ROBERTS, C. J., GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN agreed. KENNEDY THOMAS ALITO and GORSUCH dissented. The mix of the court on this particular issue is a

ROBERTS, C. J., GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN agreed. KENNEDY THOMAS ALITO and GORSUCH dissented. The mix of the court on this particular issue is amazing to me. Roberts is turning out to be one of the most balanced judges since Kennedy in terms of hearing a case of merits and not just ideology. Bush did something right bringing on that guy.

gbacon 8y ago
John Roberts: aligned chaotic-neutral.
- docker_up 8y ago
  This statement is wrong. He has always been fair and lawful, to say otherwise shows ignorance of his breadth of work, not only at the Supreme Court, but his entire career. Roberts is an honorable man, regardless of who put him in.
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    I find it quite questionable that a person who, in 2018, does not believe in the legal equality of gay people should be considered “honorable.”
    - wallace_f 8y ago
      You're downvoted because your post expresses misunderstanding. Roberts rightfully expressed no disdain for same-sex partners, nor did he express it should never be legal. Rather, it should have nothing to do with constitutional law, (nor really even federal law). Sadly all of our modern civil liberties are fought for on self-serving platforms rather than on a social framework consistent with civil liberties. In other words, people claim to be civil libertarians, but they act in a way which suggests they just care about an expedient pathway to the ones they personally care about.
      - knuththetruth 8y ago
        This is a very naive view of Roberts own record as a conservative activist and politics more generally. No such “social framework” exists separate from a fierce and persistent demand for it. This is certainly how the wealthy maintain their power.
        dang 8y ago
        It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's a violation of the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it. Ideological battle is incompatible with intellectual curiosity and this site exists for the latter. If you would please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on, we'd appreciate it.
forapurpose 8y ago
> Roberts is turning out to be one of the most balanced judges Let's be careful not to define "balanced" as 'toward the center of the current justices' ideological spectrum'. The spectrum of current justices does not represent a real-world or absolute spectrum. If Ginsberg and Breyer retired tomorrow, Roberts would be on the left, for example. > not just ideology Courts should not be applying ideology at all. That's for Congress and the President. Sadly, the SC, especially the right IMHO, is highly and unabashedly ideological these days.
- URSpider94 8y ago
  I don’t see how the Supreme Court can adjudicate cases without ideology. The entire point is that they are trying to interpret a 200-year-old document and apply it to modern situations. That generally requires having an operating philosophy of the founder’s intent, or of a more modern interpretation of how the meaning changes with the times.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > an operating philosophy of the founder’s intent, or of a more modern interpretation of how the meaning changes with the times That's why we use reason(and law), and not ideology.
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      Asking honestly, how do you interpret the Constitution without some kind of ideology? As an example - and please don't shoot me - you could consider abortion rights. The Constitution certainly doesn't address this issue directly, or even indirectly. In order to make a determination, you have to formulate an opinion on the matter that turns on the rights of, and harms to, the various parties involved, as well as any moral absolutes that you hold true. I can't see how there is any objectively correct answer to this issue that hinges entirely on reason and law, and therefore would be patently obvious. And, I would argue, that's true for MOST of the cases that the Supreme Court accepts for review.
marnett 8y ago
While this is an important decision, Chief Roberts' time to prove his balance and foresight as a justice was with Citizens United. His court's legacy died with that decision. If it weren't for the archaic archival privacy rules around Justice Sutter's dissent after his retirement we would all be able to read an insider's proclamation of the court's mockery and decline of the institution.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election. Why? Because the NY Times is a corporation. If the Supreme Court held that corporations don't have standing to claim First Amendment protections, then the NY Times wouldn't be protected either.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    That and the whole that it makes corporations into people talking point. One of the historical purposes of corporations is to give them some aspects of individuals. If I'm the CFO of a company and I enter into a contract with you, you don't have to renegotiate it if I leave the company. Because you entered into a contract with the company as a unified entity. Are companies people? Of course not. But opinions on specific campaign finance laws notwithstanding, they have rights that should look a lot like individual rights in areas like speech because they effectively represent the collective action of that company--however that specific company is organized.
  - anarazel 8y ago
    > Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. > If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election. They could have decided the case on much narrower grounds. They could have returned it as improvidently granted. The majority wouldn't have had to conclude that "this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption". I do think there were interesting 1A claims in play, and I don't know how to handle those well. But the decision as written is just naive.
jaredklewis 8y ago
Similar to the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (i.e. Obamacare) split, switching Gorsuch for Scalia. In terms of interesting splits, South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. (recently subject to much discussion on HN) had a super interesting split. The majority opinion written by Kennedy and joined by Thomas, Alito, Ginsburg, and Gorsuch. The dissent was written by Roberts and joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.

gbacon 8y ago

John Roberts: aligned chaotic-neutral.

docker_up 8y ago
This statement is wrong. He has always been fair and lawful, to say otherwise shows ignorance of his breadth of work, not only at the Supreme Court, but his entire career. Roberts is an honorable man, regardless of who put him in.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  I find it quite questionable that a person who, in 2018, does not believe in the legal equality of gay people should be considered “honorable.”
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    You're downvoted because your post expresses misunderstanding. Roberts rightfully expressed no disdain for same-sex partners, nor did he express it should never be legal. Rather, it should have nothing to do with constitutional law, (nor really even federal law). Sadly all of our modern civil liberties are fought for on self-serving platforms rather than on a social framework consistent with civil liberties. In other words, people claim to be civil libertarians, but they act in a way which suggests they just care about an expedient pathway to the ones they personally care about.
    - knuththetruth 8y ago
      This is a very naive view of Roberts own record as a conservative activist and politics more generally. No such “social framework” exists separate from a fierce and persistent demand for it. This is certainly how the wealthy maintain their power.
      - dang 8y ago
        It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's a violation of the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it. Ideological battle is incompatible with intellectual curiosity and this site exists for the latter. If you would please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on, we'd appreciate it.

forapurpose 8y ago

> Roberts is turning out to be one of the most balanced judges Let's be careful not to define "balanced" as 'toward the center of the current justices' ideological spectrum'. The spectrum of current justices does not represent a real-world or absolute spectrum. If Ginsberg and Breyer retired tomorrow, Roberts would be on the left, for example. > not just ideology Courts should not be applying ideology at all. That's for Congress and the President. Sadly, the SC, especially the right IMHO, is highly and unabashedly ideological these days.

URSpider94 8y ago
I don’t see how the Supreme Court can adjudicate cases without ideology. The entire point is that they are trying to interpret a 200-year-old document and apply it to modern situations. That generally requires having an operating philosophy of the founder’s intent, or of a more modern interpretation of how the meaning changes with the times.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > an operating philosophy of the founder’s intent, or of a more modern interpretation of how the meaning changes with the times That's why we use reason(and law), and not ideology.
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    Asking honestly, how do you interpret the Constitution without some kind of ideology? As an example - and please don't shoot me - you could consider abortion rights. The Constitution certainly doesn't address this issue directly, or even indirectly. In order to make a determination, you have to formulate an opinion on the matter that turns on the rights of, and harms to, the various parties involved, as well as any moral absolutes that you hold true. I can't see how there is any objectively correct answer to this issue that hinges entirely on reason and law, and therefore would be patently obvious. And, I would argue, that's true for MOST of the cases that the Supreme Court accepts for review.

marnett 8y ago

While this is an important decision, Chief Roberts' time to prove his balance and foresight as a justice was with Citizens United. His court's legacy died with that decision. If it weren't for the archaic archival privacy rules around Justice Sutter's dissent after his retirement we would all be able to read an insider's proclamation of the court's mockery and decline of the institution.

snowwrestler 8y ago
Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election. Why? Because the NY Times is a corporation. If the Supreme Court held that corporations don't have standing to claim First Amendment protections, then the NY Times wouldn't be protected either.
- ghaff 8y ago
  That and the whole that it makes corporations into people talking point. One of the historical purposes of corporations is to give them some aspects of individuals. If I'm the CFO of a company and I enter into a contract with you, you don't have to renegotiate it if I leave the company. Because you entered into a contract with the company as a unified entity. Are companies people? Of course not. But opinions on specific campaign finance laws notwithstanding, they have rights that should look a lot like individual rights in areas like speech because they effectively represent the collective action of that company--however that specific company is organized.
- anarazel 8y ago
  > Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. > If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election. They could have decided the case on much narrower grounds. They could have returned it as improvidently granted. The majority wouldn't have had to conclude that "this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption". I do think there were interesting 1A claims in play, and I don't know how to handle those well. But the decision as written is just naive.

jaredklewis 8y ago

Similar to the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (i.e. Obamacare) split, switching Gorsuch for Scalia. In terms of interesting splits, South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. (recently subject to much discussion on HN) had a super interesting split. The majority opinion written by Kennedy and joined by Thomas, Alito, Ginsburg, and Gorsuch. The dissent was written by Roberts and joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.