Summary

John Roberts is about to begin his tenth year as Chief Justice of the United States. At his confirmation hearings in 2005, then-Judge John Roberts described himself as a “modest judge,” one with “no agenda.” In the years since, Chief Justice John Roberts has had the opportunity to define himself as a Justice—through the votes he has cast, the decisions he has written, and the manner in which he has led the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. In the years since his confirmation, many have also tried to define him. To some, Chief Justice Roberts is exactly who Judge Roberts promised he would be: a moderate statesman who has brought greater legitimacy and consensus to an otherwise partisan Court. To others, the reality has not lived up to the promise: Chief Justice Roberts has been anything but modest, instead aggressively using the power of the Court to move the law dramatically to the right. Which is the more accurate account? There can be no doubt that over the past nine years the Supreme Court has moved the law dramatically to the right in many areas—indeed, since our inception six years ago, we have been among the most vocal critics of this rightward movement—but what role has John Roberts actually played in this movement? Is the Chief Justice strategically and deliberately leading the Court to the right, or is he simply being swept along by a conservative legal movement that is largely beyond his control? Is this truly the “Roberts Court,” or is it, as some have suggested, the “Kennedy Court” or the “Alito Court”? These questions loom large as we begin his tenth term as Chief Justice, a term that already features important cases on topics such as pregnancy discrimination and presidential power and might ultimately include blockbusters on issues ranging from same-sex marriage to abortion to affirmative action.

Over the course of the next year, we plan to try to answer these questions by taking a look at the first decade of John Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice. By examining John Roberts’s votes and decisions across different areas of the law, we hope to be able to assess whether Chief Justice Roberts has fulfilled the promises made by Judge Roberts, and to understand John Roberts’s role in the decisions of the “Roberts Court” during his first ten years on the Court. What has been John Roberts’s impact on the law, the courts, and the country during his first ten years on the Supreme Court, and what is it likely to be in the future?