Justice Roberts Thinks Senate Should Hold Hearings

In a speech given 10 days before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made unequivocal remarks about the need to keep politicking out of considerations of new Supreme Court judges. His prescient comments have some hoping Roberts will speak up again to rebuke Senate Republicans, who have vowed not to hold hearings on Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Not long ago, qualified nominees were voted onto the Court by wide margins: Justice Scalia was confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0 in 1986; in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96 to 3. Now, however, “the process is not functioning very well,” Roberts said in a speech at New England Law. Roberts suggested that the more recent members of the bench should have had a far easier nomination process. “Look at my more recent colleagues, all extremely well qualified for the court, and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines for the last three of them, or close to it, and that doesn’t make any sense,” Roberts said. “That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of nominees.”