Litigation

Obama and Roberts: a Supreme Rivalry?

By Charlie Hall

Have President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts, both magna cum laude graduates of Harvard Law School, become the nation’s leading intellectual rivals over the proper role of government? That is the intriguing thesis of “Obama v. Roberts: the Struggle to Come,” a story in Saturday’s New York Times.

The article, by White House correspondent Peter Baker, recounts a series of growing tensions between the two men, including the chief justice’s flubbed delivery of Obama’s oath of office, which required an embarrassing White House do-over (photo), and open divisions over the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United (see this earlier Gavel Grab post).

Many years after their campus days in Cambridge, Mass., President Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. have emerged as the intellectual gladiators in a great struggle over the role of government in American society. In this moment of churning uncertainty and ideological ferment, it is a struggle that is already defining the selection of the next Supreme Court justice and could easily help shape the course of the nation for years to come.

Much more so than last year, when he made his first nomination to the court, Mr. Obama has Chief Justice Roberts on his mind as he mulls his second, according to Democrats close to the White House. For an activist president, the chief justice has emerged clearly in recent months as a potentially formidable obstacle, and Mr. Obama has signaled that he plans to use the political arena and his appointment power to counter the direction of the Roberts court.

To see other stories on the current Supreme Court vacancy, click here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 18, 2010 (boomark / email).