Review by Choice Review
The political battles between Trumpian conservatives and liberal/progressive Democrats have turned attention to the Supreme Court. Currently, the court is split five to four, with the Republicans safely holding the reins. Sitting in the court's middle seat is John Roberts, the 17th chief justice, who is the subject of Joan Biskupic's books. A CNN analyst and seasoned Supreme Court reporter, Biskupic provides a work that helps readers understand how Roberts became a conservative, and information regarding his professional development. The study begins with Roberts's adolescent years and carries through to recent times. In discussing Roberts tenure, the author points out that in a couple of cases he has slipped to the Left. Whether this will happen more frequently now that Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has retired is undetermined. What is known, as expressed in the last sentence of the study, is that "the law will likely be what he says it is." This study, which includes 49 pages of notes, is well researched, well written, and readable. The research includes 20 hours of interviews. Strongly recommended for all institutions of higher education. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --John J. Fox, emeritus, Salem State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
THE CHIEF: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts, by Joan Biskupic. (Basic, $32.) This assiduously reported, briskly written biography offers new behind-the-scenes details on John Roberts's life and career, but shows just how hard it is to figure out who the chief justice really is or what he stands for; Biskupic, an analyst at CNN, ends up calling her own subject an "enigma." But as our reviewer, Adam Cohen, notes, she also "suggests that he is pulled by two often-conflicting instincts. One is ideological: a desire to move the court rightward on race, religion and other issues. The other is institutional: an interest in the court being respected and seen as nonpolitical."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 14, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
During Roberts' reign as the seventeenth chief justice of the Supreme Court, he has attracted detractors when he ruled favorably in a case involving the Affordable Care Act, going against the wishes of fellow conservative jurists and lawmakers in failing to dismantle President Obama's signature legislation. Equal outrage was sparked among liberal factions when he took the lead in the Citizens United case, which opened corporate coffers to political campaigns. Being in the center of the storm is not a natural setting for Roberts, an introspective, midwestern conservative and devout Catholic who knew from an early age that the law was his calling. As legal analyst and biographer Biskupic continues her look at the Supreme Court, following Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice (2014), she evaluates Roberts' tenure via the court's most disputed cases involving race, voting rights, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ rights. What emerges is a balanced portrait of this most influential of judges. What surprises is the unprecedented glimpse at the interpersonal, and often contentious, relationships that reverberate throughout the court.--Carol Haggas Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Biskupic (Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice), a legal analyst for CNN who has covered the Supreme Court since 1989, offers an in-depth analysis of the career and judicial philosophy of the current chief justice, John Roberts. Biskupic goes light on Roberts's personal life and mundane day-to-day details, focusing instead on his work in the George H.W. Bush Justice Department, his time on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, his 2005 appointment and confirmation to the Supreme Court, and his role in the back-and-forth of the justices' decision making. Biskupic is clear that Roberts's views are deeply conservative and, in the areas of race and religion, unlikely to change, but she also discusses at length his surprising vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act, which infuriated conservatives and prompted liberals to hope he may compromise on culturally divisive issues. At times Biskupic is openly critical of Roberts; she raises doubts about his claim that the Court's recent decisions on voting rights, religion, and campaign finance were neutral decision making rather than the work of a political institution. In these pages, Roberts comes across as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative whose views have remained remarkably unchanging over time. Biskupic's analysis will be closely read by Court watchers on both the Right and Left. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Digging into the life career of the elusive chief justice.CNN legal analyst Biskupic, who was the Supreme Court correspondent at the Washington Post and has written biographies on Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, and Sandra Day O'Connor, is perfectly positioned to dissect the first decade-plus tenure of Chief Justice John Roberts (b. 1955). Appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005 after the sudden death of William Rehnquist, Roberts, at only age 50, was chosen for his conservative bona fides, his Ivy League education, the many cases he had argued before the Supreme Court, and his resistant views on affirmative action and voting rights, among other expressed opinions. Indeed, in his general approach to law, Roberts has proven that he is, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared, "born conservative." Yet he has also made some intriguing decisionse.g., finding the core of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacarethe provision upholding the individual insurance mandateconstitutional in the watershed case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012). While his 2013 Selby County v. Holder decision "eviscerating a key section of the Voting Rights Act" addressed what he perceived as the "failure of racial remedies in America"as Biskupic writes, it "marked the first time since the 19th century that the Supreme Court struck down a civil rights law protecting people based on race"he seems, on the basis of other rulings, concerned that his court is delineated solely along political lines. After Scalia's death in February 2016, the court was left without a successor for more than 400 days thanks to political maneuvering and the Republican blocking of President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garlanda difficult period for the court. As the author demonstrates in her incisive analysis, the 5-4 "conservative-liberal fault line" has prevailede.g., in the upholding of Donald Trump's Muslim ban. A thorough, albeit somewhat premature, biographical portrait. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
