Roberts Is The Man
The votes are in and John Roberts will lead the federal judicial branch for most of our lives, assuming he stays in good health. He seems like a good guy, better than Tom Delay anyway. Although not much is known about the new Chief Justice, what is known is that he was opposed by more senate members than any of the last four Chiefs have been. The votes were 78-22, although sufficing the two-thirds majority, it did raise some eyebrows.
The reason is because the democratic party is wide open for canidates. They have to vote against the guy, politically. It’s all a game, basically. Hillary Clinton and Russel Feingold both want the nod from their party in 2008, so they oppose anything to do with our current, for lack of a better word, leader. So some of the hard nosed dems, including Ted Kennedy and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, voted against Roberts.
There are 55 Republicans on the court. All of them, obviously, gave Johnny boy the thumbs up. The 44 Liberals were split in half (big surprise) and the lone independent favored the flavor Roberts brought to the ball.
Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader who was recently indicted for smuggling some cash to Texas Conservative canidates, was definitely in favor of Roberts becoming the next Chief Justice. Delay and other Conservatives are now looking to the next nominee Bush gets to put up. Replacing Sandra Day O’Connor is the true hinge in the court. She was always on the fence so to speak when it came to issues and looked at these cases from a contructivist point of view. Look, Rehnquist was to the right, Roberts is to the right, it’s a dollar for a dollar. But O’Connor, she was one of a kind. She never voted one way or the other and if Bush replaces her with a Gonzales or a Alito, Civil Rights and racial equality could be tossed off of Capital Hill.
Roberts actually wrote in favor of affirmative action and the equality of voting rights for minorities. He has played both sides really well thus far but they always do. They have to suck up to whoever is in the administration because they want the best job on the planet. Honestly, supreme court judge, talk about job security with great benefits and a comfortable salary. So I’m not too worried about Ol’ Roberts as much as I am the next nominee but we’ll just have to wait and see who that might be.
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