Sen. John Kennedy has joined a growing number of conservatives who have turned sour on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts following his decision this week to side with liberals on the court in striking down a Louisiana abortion law that would have closed most clinics in the state.
“The process bothers me as much as the result,” Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said Monday. “Four years ago, in a case out of Texas, same statute, same issue, the chief justice voted with the conservatives. Today, he voted with the liberals.”
The staunchly pro-life lawmaker continued: “He changed his vote. He flip-flopped. He flip-flopped like a banked catfish. And that’s why I say the process worries me as much as the result.”
Roberts was nominated to the high court by former President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2005. Every Republican in the upper chamber voted to confirm him that year. Kennedy was not elected to the Senate until 2017.
Roberts has broken with the court’s conservative majority on more than one occasion during its recent term. Earlier this month, Roberts voted with liberals on the court in striking down an attempt by President Trump’s administration to scrap an Obama-era immigration program that shields children brought to the United States illegally from deportation.
Roberts also cast the decisive swing vote that allowed the court to uphold the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people under the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s.
President Trump admonished the court’s recent rulings, asking, “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” Trump plans to release a new list of nominees to the court this fall.
Meanwhile, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have waged attacks against Roberts in recent days, a man they have characterized as a turncoat.
“If the Chief Justice believes his political judgment is so exquisite, I invite him to resign, travel to Iowa, and get elected. I suspect voters will find his strange views no more compelling than do the principled justices on the court,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican.
Sen. Marco Rubio accused the Supreme Court and its chief justice of playing politics with constitutional law.
“What really troubles a lot of people is that some of the folks that the Republican Party has put on this bench … because they say that they understand that their job is to interpret the law, not to write it, are becoming activists,” Rubio said. “It’s concerning.”
The court struck down a Texas law four years ago that sought to regulate heavily the abortion industry there.
“I joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health,” Roberts wrote in reference to the Texas law, saying he “continue[s] to believe that the case was wrongly decided. The question today, however, is not whether Whole Woman’s Health was right or wrong, but whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case.”
Roberts continued: “The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons,” Roberts wrote in a concurring opinion. “Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”
Kennedy takes exception with Roberts offering a pair of divergent judgments on two laws that are essentially the same.
“This is why so many people think that our federal courts, our federal judges, have become nothing but politicians in robes,” Kennedy said. “The chief justice famously says all the time that he is just an umpire — all he does is call balls and strikes. Well, four years ago, he called a ball. Today, same pitch, he called a strike. And I don’t know what else to say, Martha. He just changed his vote with no explanation.”
