Talk:John Roberts

Roberts refused the Chief Justice robes
On the 29 September 2005, John Roberts stated he would not be donning Chief Justice Renquist's robes. These robes had black stripes on either arm around the elbow.

Robert's said at the time he didn't want to be seen as being "above" the other, more-experienced Justices and preferred to be one of several Justices. And so it has continued.

In my opinion, he knew in his heart he could not command nor fulfill the highest position on the court. He doubted his supervisory abilities and did not want to be seen as 'boss of the court.' While he has been comfortable with being a tie breaker, he has never risen to the position for which he was nominated.

This is evident today with the severe ethical lapses on the court. He acts like a church mouse and is happy to not get involved.

I have recognized this flaw in him since September of 2005.

RG Clark, Dallas (talk) 06:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 June 2024
change "...ban could justified on the basis of national security..." to "...ban could be justified on the basis of national security..." Bigfatmidget (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅   [[User:CanonNi ]]  (talk • contribs) 06:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Top of the class
White whirlwind I would just add that graduating at the top of your class can surely mean either you are ranked first (i.e., with the Fay Diploma), or in the top decile. You are right — there is no source saying that Roberts was ranked first, and no source I've found has specified what exact rank he was. But the source verifies that he was "at the top of his class," and its an accurate reflection to stick to it. I would say that "near the top" also implies that he wasn't "at the top" (i.e., the top decile), and that would be untrue. GuardianH (talk) 21:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Surely the easiest solution would be to reword to something like "graduated as one of the top students in his class" or "was one of the top students in his class".  White Whirlwind   03:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Lede discussion
Clearly we're going to have to a discussion about this so I'm preëmpting it by kicking this off. I believe PoliticalWizard55's reversion of the lede is misguided at best and leans too heavily on precedent as a determining factor.

It is fundamentally incorrect to describe Roberts broadly as an institutionalist anymore—the decisions in Chevron and Trump v. US make such an idea fallacious at best. Further, to revert changes that reflect Roberts' new positions on executive, judicial, and federal-enforcement power due to "some perceptions of one term" is ignorant of the fact that the most recent Supreme Court term was unprecedented in and of itself.

Propose reverting the final two sentences of the lede to: '''Once regarded as a swing vote, Roberts has presided over an ideological shift toward conservative jurisprudence on the high court, in which he has authored key opinions. ''' Fiendpie (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Chief Justice Roberts leans to the left? Antignomi (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I genuinely cannot tell if you're trolling. Do you have a point? Fiendpie (talk) 16:53, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't make the changes you asked for without a reliable source. Does the source you provided ("Chief Justice Roberts leans to the left", a 2018 article from the Economist) say that Roberts was "once regarded as a swing vote"? Antignomi (talk) 17:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, and apologies for coming in hot—I was pulling the direct language from the original edit so I didn't check the sourcing as closely as I should have. The below links more closely align with the sentence:
 * Once regarded as a swing vote, Roberts has presided over an ideological shift toward conservative jurisprudence on the high court, in which he has authored key opinions.  Fiendpie (talk) 21:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)