In a letter to the Washington Post, League of Women Voters President Mary Wilson praises President Obama for his public criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. After making some counterfactual observations about how everyone just knows that “unregulated cash” will pretty much destroy democracy, Wilson, whose organization favored censoring Citizens United, writes, ”Buck up, Mr. Chief Justice. Occasionally there are some things you really need to hear.”
The Chief, you may recall, said, in response to a question at a speech at the University of Alabama, “anybody can criticize the Supreme Court without any qualm. Some people, I think, have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office, if they think we’ve done something wrong.” But he did add that the State of the Union may be a little too partisan a political event for it to be appropriate for the justices to attend in the future.
It occurs to us that that comment pretty well sums up the difference between Chief Justice Roberts and Ms. Wilson. The Chief Justice is prepared to let people speak, and to take criticism, and if he doesn’t think the manner or place of criticism appropriate, to go elsewhere. But when Ms. Wilson and the League of Women Voters don’t like what other people say, they argue that those speakers should be silenced.
We’ll cast our lot with the Chief.