23 Quotes by Richard Garnett

He'll be much more likely to use crisp, technical, very careful legal analysis,

I think, actually, if you want to know where Roberts is on a lot of stuff, Rehnquist is a good place to start,

I think he's happy now just getting his work done, and the work of the other justices done. He takes that leadership role seriously.

The Democrats won't have the votes to sustain a filibuster even if they wanted to, ... I think people will vote against him, even though they know he's going to be confirmed, because the polarization's gotten worse. But that's unfortunate, because whatever one's ideological views, based on his merits he is one of the best qualified nominees in 50 years.

This year, the whole court seems to be willing to go along with clear, concise, yet not very sweeping decisions. Some of these cases had the potential to be controversial, but they are focusing on the issues they agree on.

Even if the president wasn't up to it in alligators and his approval rating was 90 percent, John Roberts simply is the best guy for the chief justice's job. I think the thought of having John Roberts join him on the court kept the chief going despite his cancer. I think he's probably smiling about it now.

really did dramatically reshape the conversation about federal power.

It's actually kind of a recent idea that in order to judge a nominee, you had to have tons and tons of paper, ... For most of history it was, you know, someone's nominated, probably a friend of the president ... You had hearings, and in the hearings you asked some questions, and the questions gave you the answers, and that was it. No one asked about how you were going to rule in Roe v. Wade, how you were going to rule in Miranda, whatever.

It's not the usual thing, but it doesn't strike me as being troubling. It would be a mistake to read it as payback.