Roberts, John G., Jr., 1955-

John G. Roberts, Jr., in full John Glover Roberts, Jr., (born January 27, 1955, Buffalo, New York, U.S.), 17th chief justice of the United States (2005– ).

Roberts was the second of four children born to John (Jack) G. Roberts, Sr., and Rosemary Roberts (née Podrasky) in Buffalo, New York, in 1955. Roberts, Sr., worked as an executive for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and, when he received a promotion to work at a new steel plant in Indiana in the early 1960s, the family moved there, settling in Long Beach, Indiana.

As is typical of future U.S. Supreme Court justices, Roberts excelled in school. He spent his high school years at La Lumiere, a recently established Roman Catholic boarding school in La Porte, Indiana. He graduated first in his class and was cocaptain of the football team. He then attended Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1976 with a degree in history. At Harvard Law School he served as managing editor of the Harvard Law Review before graduating magna cum laude in 1979.

After law school, Roberts spent two years clerking for federal judges—first for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and next for then associate justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court. Afterward, Roberts worked in the administration of Republican Pres. Ronald Reagan, first in the attorney general’s office and then in the White House counsel’s office.

From 1986 to 1989 and from 1993 to 2003 Roberts enjoyed a prominent and successful career as an appellate lawyer with the Washington, D.C., law firm of Hogan & Hartson, during which he argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 25. From 1989 to 1993 he served as principal deputy solicitor general in the Department of Justice during the administration of Republican Pres. George H.W. Bush. Roberts also regularly appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) to provide analysis of pending Supreme Court cases. Unlike his public service as an attorney, which involved employment in Republican administrations only, Roberts’s private practice did not have an obvious partisan or ideological leaning. In 2000, he did briefly assist the presidential campaign of Republican candidate George W. Bush in its litigation concerning the counting of ballots in Florida (see Bush v. Gore).

Pres. George H.W. Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1992, but the Senate did not confirm him. In 2001 Pres. George W. Bush named Roberts for a seat on the same court, but the nomination stalled after Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party (to become an independent), giving the Democrats effective control of the Senate. Bush reappointed Roberts for the same position two more times before Roberts was finally confirmed in May 2003, after Republicans regained control of the Senate following the 2002 elections. During Roberts’s confirmation hearings, Republican senators complained about what they characterized as an 11-year delay of action on Roberts’s nominations by Democratic senators. But Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont defended the Democratic-controlled Senate’s inaction in 1992, asserting that it was consistent with the longstanding “Strom Thurmond rule” (named for the long-serving senator from South Carolina), which, as Leahy put it, meant that “the President, Republican or Democrat, except for extraordinary circumstances, and we have made some exceptions, does not get a nominee through after about July or so of a presidential election year.”

After serving as a federal judge for two years, Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court by George W. Bush in July 2005 to fill the seat vacated by associate justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was retiring. But before Roberts could be confirmed by the Senate, then chief justice William H. Rehnquist died. Roberts’s nomination as associate justice was withdrawn, and in September Bush nominated Roberts to replace Rehnquist as chief justice (O’Connor was ultimately replaced by Samuel A. Alito, Jr.).

During his confirmation hearings, Roberts spoke of the importance of—and his commitment to—judicial restraint, the idea that judges should simply and neutrally apply the law rather than engage in creative law-making (see also judicial activism). “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them,” he declared. Continuing his baseball analogy, he promised that, if confirmed, “I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” He was widely praised by senators from both parties for his intelligence, credentials, diligence, and professionalism. But Democratic senators expressed concerns about his commitment to civil rights. Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia—who himself had played a prominent role in the American civil rights movement—testified in opposition to Roberts’s confirmation, expressing his concern that Roberts would undermine or even overturn the progress made by the movement. Other Democrats cited memoranda Roberts had written in his years working in the Reagan administration that included dismissive comments both about discrimination against women and minorities and about legal efforts to remedy it. Roberts and his defenders argued that he had merely been expressing the views of his clients—Republican administrations—as attorneys are required to do. In keeping with contemporary practice among nominees to the highest court, Roberts refused to answer questions about specific issues, noting the possibility that they could come before the Court as legal matters. Roberts was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 78 to 22 on September 29, 2005.

John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as Chief Justice of the United States. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including Shelby County v. Holder, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, King v. Burwell, and Department of Commerce v. New York. He has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy but has shown a willingness to work with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc, and since the retirement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 has come to be regarded as a key swing vote on the Court.[3][4][5] Roberts presided over the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Roberts grew up in northwestern Indiana and was educated in Catholic schools. He studied history at Harvard College and then attended Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Circuit Judge Henry Friendly and then-associate justice William Rehnquist before taking a position in the attorney general's office during the Reagan Administration. He went on to serve the Reagan administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, before spending 14 years in private law practice. During this time, he argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court.[6] Notably, he represented 19 states in United States v. Microsoft Corp.[7]

In 2003, Roberts was appointed as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by George W. Bush. During his two-year tenure on the D.C. Circuit, Roberts authored 49 opinions, eliciting two dissents from other judges, and authoring three dissents of his own.[8] In 2005, Roberts was nominated to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, initially to succeed the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. When Rehnquist died before Roberts's confirmation hearings began, Bush instead nominated Roberts for Chief Justice and later appointed Samuel Alito as Associate Justice.