"I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat."
- From John Roberts's opening statement in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 2005
“Essentially,” [Justice Stevens] wrote, “five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.” Roberts, as a fifth vote (let alone the Chief Justice), had the power to keep the ruling of Citizens United narrow if he so chose. He chose otherwise: to dismantle the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act while overruling a 2003 case upholding the law and a 1990 case underlying this.
Citizens United says a lot about Chief Justice Roberts as a jurist, but it says more about him as a man.
