Roberts vs. Obama

President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts are set on a "collision course." I have posted on this topic before, and things have only heated up since then. As it stands, the Supreme Court, led by the Roberts majority, is the one institution that stands squarely in the path of the unrelenting Obama juggernaut. The inevitable clashes over the competing views on the role of government will be something to behold. Here's an interesting story from the LA Times:

As chief justice, Roberts has steered the court on a conservative course, one that often has tilted toward business. For example, the justices have made it much harder for investors or pension funds to sue companies for stock fraud.

Two years ago, the court declared for the first time that the gun rights of individuals were protected by the Constitution. This year, the justices made clear this was a "fundamental" right that extended to cities and states as well as federal jurisdictions.

Since the arrival in 2006 of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Roberts has had a five-member majority skeptical of campaign funding restrictions. At first, he moved cautiously. Roberts spoke for the majority in 2007 in saying that a preelection broadcast ad sponsored by a nonprofit corporation was protected as free speech even though it criticized a candidate for office.

Last year, the court had before it another seemingly minor challenge to election laws by a group that wanted permission to sell a DVD that slammed Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was running for president in 2008. This time, however, Roberts decided on a much bolder move.

The 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case struck down all limits on direct election spending — for giant, profit-making corporations as well as small nonprofit groups. For more than 60 years, Congress and many states had barred corporate and union spending to sway elections. The court's opinion dismissed all such laws as unconstitutional censorship.

The decision came as a "real shock to the administration and to the Democrats in Congress," said Simon Lazarus, counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center. "It's also caused a sea change in their thinking about the court. Before, it was all about the 'culture wars' issues, like abortion, prayer and gay rights. Afterward, they saw this new activist thrust among the conservatives as a direct threat to their legislative agenda."