Justice Roberts could be new "center," law prof says

Chemerinsky

By Margo Kirchner

President Trump's next U.S. Supreme Court appointment likely would make Chief Justice John Roberts the ideological middle of the court,  according to the dean of the University of California, Berkeley, Law School.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky noted that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, and Stephen Breyer are all older than the average age at which past Supreme Court justices have retired.

Roberts becoming the "center" would show the Court's continued movement toward the conservative viewpoint, he said.
 
Chemerinsky, a well-known scholar on constitutional law, spoke as part of a panel hosted by the American Constitution Society. He discussed the progression of the median or swing justice from Justice Lewis Powell to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Justice Anthony Kennedy.
 
He said another Trump appointment would most likely have an effect on affirmative action laws, criminal penalties, and the exclusionary rule (which generally prohibits the admission of illegally obtained evidence).

In addition, he sees five votes to overrule Roe v. Wade should another Trump appointee make it to the Court.

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Chief Justice John Roberts: the Court's next "centrist"?

​He also expects, however, that if Democrats take the Senate in November 2018 they would sit on any Trump Supreme Court nominee until after the 2020 elections, as pushback after President Barack Obama’s failed Merrick Garland nomination. Senate Republicans refused to vote on Garland's nomination for 10 months, until Obama's term expired.
 
Law professors Melissa Murray and Pamela Karlan joined Chemerinsky on the panel, moderated by Caroline Frederickson, president of the American Constitution Society.  Murray, a professor and faculty director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law School, discussed a second Trump appointee’s potential effect on reproductive rights and the frequent chipping-away of Roe.  Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School, speculated on the status of LGBTQ rights if another Trump nominee joins the Court.
 
Karlan noted the importance of getting the public to understand how court decisions affect their lives.