Author

The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.

From John Roberts

By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.

From John Roberts

If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States.

From John Roberts

People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures - joined with the similar failures of others - can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

From John Roberts

President Ronald Reagan used to speak of the Soviet constitution, and he noted that it purported to grant wonderful rights of all sorts to people. But those rights were empty promises, because that system did not have an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law and enforce those rights.

From John Roberts

Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.

From John Roberts

There is no better gift a society can give children than the opportunity to grow up safe and free - the chance to pursue whatever dreams they may have.

From John Roberts

A chief justice's authority is really quite limited, and the dynamic among all the justices is going to affect whether he can accomplish much or not. There is this convention of referring to the Taney Court, the Marshall Court, the Fuller Court, but a chief justice has the same vote that everyone else has.

From John Roberts

A justice is not like a law professor, who might say, 'This is my theory... and this is what I'm going to be faithful to and consistent with,' and in twenty years will look back and say, 'I had a consistent theory of the First Amendment as applied to a particular area.'

From John Roberts

You can't fight for your rights if you don't know what they are.

From John Roberts

John Roberts

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

Arlen Specter

Don Willett

Jay Alan Sekulow

Thomas Rex Lee

Vincent Bugliosi

Authors with Opposing Views

Anthony Davis

Brian Sandoval

Dan Webster

Denis Diderot

Gavin O'Connor