Barack Obama's Unexpected Best Friend: Chief Justice John Roberts

The president owes a big part of his legislative legacy to a justice he voted against.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swears in U.S. President Barack Obama during the public ceremonial inauguration as first lady Michelle Obama looks on on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol January 21, 2013 in Washington, DC. Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term as President of the United States.
Photographer: JOHN MOORE/Getty images

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By Margaret Talev and Greg Stohr

June 25, 2015 at 6:49 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

After President George W. Bush nominated John Roberts, a veteran of the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to the Supreme Court as chief justice in 2005, one Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a freshman Democrat, explained why his vote would be "no."

"It is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak," Obama said at the time. "I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified."