The chief justice has not respected precedent as he said he would in those hearings. In fact, he has legislated from the bench as he did last week, something that he decried when discussing previous courts, like that of Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s.The essence of this crime is that Roberts said that he would follow precedent, a process known as stare decisis. However, he has flouted it and has become one of the most activist justices in American History in striking down previously-established legal precedents. His actions in the aggregate now rise to the level of criminal behavior.
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Stare decisis is a common-law doctrine under which courts adhere to precedent on questions of law in order to ensure certainty, consistency, and stability in the administration of justice. In last week's lamentable case entitled Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, Roberts and his right-wing allies created a new constitutional right: corporately-purchased freedom of speech. That is one of the most radical assertions in American jurisprudence, espousing a right that no jurist has stated as law in the 221 years of our jurisprudence.
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Roberts' action should not have been a surprise. As legal analyst and attorney Jeffrey Tobin noted in a piece about him in last year's New Yorker entitled "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said that Roberts is not even remotely close to a moderate. "The Chief Justice talks the talk of moderation while walking the walk of extreme conservatism."
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Extreme conservatism is not an impeachable offense. Lying to Congress is.
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It is time for the U.S. House of Representatives to draft articles of impeachment against Roberts for lying to Congress during his confirmation hearing.
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Democrats should undertake this action in memory of Sen. Kennedy. The late Massachusetts senator derailed President Reagan's nomination of another right-wing extremist, Robert Bork, to the Supreme Court in 1987 by using these words: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizen's doors in midnight raids, and children could not be taught about evolution."
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This should be the message of the American people: "John Roberts' America is a land in which black Americans playing in the Super Bowl would sleep in airport terminals instead of Miami hotels because segregation is not a violation of the Constitution, a land in which child labor would be legal because outlawing it would be a violation of a corporation's First Amendment freedom of expression, a land in which only men could vote because the 19th Amendment was unconstitutional, a land in which black golfers would not be permitted to play in the Masters because segregation at a private golf course should be permitted, a land in which a corporation has individual rights but people seeking privacy against illegal intrusions by the government should be denied that right, and a land in which women will be forced once again into back-alley abortions because Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional."
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No precedent is safe under Roberts.
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