Chief Justice Decries “Partisan Hostility”

Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts, this week said the “partisan hostility” that clouded the nomination process for his new colleague, Justice Neil Gorsuch, is worrisome in its potential to erode public trust in the apolitical nature of the judicial system. “We in the judiciary do not do our business in a partisan, ideological manner,” Roberts told a crowd of 1,200 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute the day after Gorsuch’s nomination to the Court was approved. “The new justice is not a Republican or a Democrat; he’s a member of the Supreme Court. But it’s hard for people to understand that when they see the process that leads up to it.” As a way of building that non-ideological camaraderie amongst the justices, Roberts says he enforces a strict rule when the judges dine together: “There’s no talking about business. We talk about books, opera, baseball, children. We get to know each other pretty well.”