Napolitano on Supreme Court Louisiana abortion ruling
Supreme Court strikes down ruling; Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano reacts.
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said Chief Justice John Roberts “will probably be vilified” by conservative Republicans for once again casting a deciding vote by siding with the Supreme Court's liberal justices on Monday.
Napolitano made the comment shortly after the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that individuals who perform abortions at clinics have admitting privileges in a nearby hospital is unconstitutional, as it places an undue burden on women seeking abortions.
The court ruled 5-4 in the case, June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, with Chief Justice Roberts casting a deciding vote.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, noted that the Louisiana law is "almost word-for-word identical" to a Texas law the court ruled was unconstitutional in 2016's Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. A District Court had rejected the Louisiana law because of that precedent, but a court of appeals ruled otherwise.
“The Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that was nearly identical word for word and the chief justice dissented from striking it down,” Napolitano said. “This was a different Supreme Court with different people on it.”
“Today the chief justice says, ‘I am going with precedent,’” he continued.
“We can't just change with the political times and the Constitution doesn't change when different members join the court with different judicial philosophies so this is the conservative Republican chief justice siding with the liberal wing of the court to uphold the status quo ... what we call stare decisis, to uphold the law as it has been rather than making any radical changes.”
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Napolitano went on to say that “this should give some consolation to those who fear that the present Supreme Court, with two members appointed by Donald Trump, is going to gut Roe v. Wade.”
“It doesn't appear that it's going to,” he continued.
This is just the latest closely watched court case where Roberts has cast a critical vote, and angered conservatives.
The court recently ruled, in a 5-4 decision penned by Roberts, that President Trump's reversal of former President Barack Obama’s executive order – that shielded immigrants who came to the country illegally as children from deportation – was in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which sets out rulemaking procedures for federal agencies.
“John Roberts will probably be vilified as he was last week by the conservative Republicans, but he is upholding what is most important to him and that his legacy and consistency in the court,” Napolitano said.
He added that “everyone except John Roberts is behaving the way we all thought.”
Napolitano pointed out that Roberts is a George W. Bush appointee.
“He was appointed to the court twice, first to replace Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor when she retired and then to replace Chief Justice [William Hubbs] Rehnquist when he died so he was twice scrutinized, twice appointed by George W. Bush,” Napolitano pointed out, adding that “he never served in the O’Connor seat” and “has been chief justice since he's been on the court in day one.”
Napolitano said that Roberts “does look at these things from the standpoint of generations from now.”
“Did his court change the law of the land because of the political winds were blowing in an different direction than when the law was written? Or did his court stick with the law of the land with what we call stare decisis? If there's any consistency in the chief justice’s thinking, it has been that,” Napolitano continued.
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It was Roberts who, by siding with the liberal wing and reinterpreting an individual mandate as a tax, allowed ObamaCare to be found constitutional in 2012. Last year, he joined with the wing again in shutting down Trump’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the census.
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer, Bill Mears and Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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