WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts told law students Tuesday that he found it “very troubling” to be surrounded by loudly cheering critics at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, saying it was reason enough for the justices not to attend the annual speech to Congress.
“To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we are there,” Roberts said at the University of Alabama Law School.
Roberts said Obama’s criticism itself — of the court’s ruling to overturn campaign- financing limits on corporations — did not bother him.
“Anybody can criticize the Supreme Court. . . . I have no problem with that,” he said.
But he objected to criticism in such a public setting, where the justices had no choice but to sit silently.
