By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES — Emphasizing his disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Obama’s healthcare law, Mitt Romney criticized Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday, stating that Roberts reached a conclusion that was inappropriate and “took a departure” from sound reasoning.
Before the healthcare ruling, Romney had praised Roberts. His website says he would “nominate justices in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito,” candidates who “exhibit a genuine appreciation for the text, structure, and history of our Constitution and interpret the Constitution and the laws as they are written.”
But Romney displayed a cooler attitude toward Roberts in his interview with CBS News’ Jan Crawford on Wednesday near his vacation retreat of Wolfeboro, N.H.
When Crawford asked whether he would nominate a justice like Roberts, now that the chief justice voted to uphold the president’s healthcare law, Romney answered that he “certainly wouldn’t nominate someone who I knew” was going to come out with a decision that I “vehemently disagreed with.”
Roberts’ decision to side with the liberals of the court, Romney added, gave the impression his “decision was made not based upon (a) constitutional foundation but instead, (a) political consideration about the relationship between the branches of government.”
Romney called Roberts “a very bright person,” according to a transcript provided by CBS News, and said he would look to nominate justices with intelligence who “believe in following the Constitution.”
As usual, the presumptive Republican nominee did not reveal many details about his vice presidential search, which is being headed by his longtime aide Beth Myers. But his wife, Ann Romney, acknowledged that she had been thinking a great deal about her husband’s selection.
The choice, she said, should be someone who cannot only do the job, but would also stand solidly behind her husband. She said she hoped it would be someone “that Mitt will enjoy … with the same personality type.”
“There’s a lot of good people out there that fill that bill right now,” she said.
