As I sat with Judge Gorsuch, a disconcerting feeling came over me that I had been through this before and I soon realized I had, with Judge John G. Roberts Jr. He was similarly charming, polished and erudite. Like Neil Gorsuch, he played the part of a model jurist. And just like Neil Gorsuch, he asserted his independence, claiming to be a judge who simply called balls and strikes, unbiased by both ideology and politics.
When Judge Roberts became Justice Roberts, we learned that we had been duped by an activist judge. The Roberts court systematically and almost immediately shifted to the right, violating longstanding precedent with its rulings in Citizens United and in Shelby v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. Before Justice Scalia died, the court was on the precipice of violating precedent again with Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which would have eviscerated unions. In each instance, there was an attempt to tilt the scales of justice in favor of big business or right-leaning interests. Rather than calling balls and strikes, Chief Justice Roberts was a 10th player, shifting the power structure toward the privileged and away from the average American.
