The dangerous hypocrisy of the Supreme Court's new swing justice
John Roberts chooses businesses over workers.
IAN MILLHISER JUN 27, 2018, 2:53 PM
One of the most difficult questions facing Supreme Court justices is when they should overrule a prior decision. In a pair of cases handed down this term, Chief Justice John Roberts gave a revealing answer to this question: Courts should apply a very strong presumption in favor of past decisions when those decisions benefit business interests, but not when they benefit workers.
With Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement on Wednesday that he will leave the Court, Roberts now becomes the only member of the Court’s Republican majority who could plausibly be convinced to vote with the liberals on any of the issues that currently divide the Court. So his bias in favor of business will now be a driving factor in the Court’s future decisions.
The first of the pair of cases was South Dakota v. Wayfair, which overruled a 1967 Supreme Court decision holding that states cannot charge sales taxes to businesses without a physical presence in that state — think of online retailers that do business entirely through the internet and the mail.
Every member of the Court agreed that this 1967 decision was wrongly decided, but they split 5-4 on whether stare decisis — the strong presumption that current judges should follow past decisions — should compel the Court to defer to this erroneous decision. Roberts wrote for the four dissenters, arguing that stare decisis should control.
https://thinkprogress.org/the-dangerous-hypocrisy-of-john-roberts-2e06aee2fd36/
And if anyone has read Ian Millhiser book:
Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted by Ian Millhiser (24-Mar-2015)
its pretty much sums up the court........................
