GQ List of Influence Puts Chief Justice at No. 10, SCOTUSblog Founder at No. 45
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is the 10th most influential person in Washington, D.C., beating out Attorney General Eric Holder, who comes in at No. 13.
GQ magazine said it ranked Roberts 10th on its list of the 50 most powerful people in D.C. because of his apparent influence in moving the court to the right. “A fact: Under Roberts, the Supreme Court has become more conservative than at any point in the past three decades,” the magazine says.
Harvard law professor and bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren is 30th on the list for her position as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
No. 44 is lawyer Robert Barnett of Williams & Connolly, for helping government officials obtain “enormous book advances.” And 45th is lawyer Tom Goldstein, a Supreme Court litigator with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who founded SCOTUSblog. The blog gets up to 300,000 hits a day.
“Going on his hunch last summer that [Sonia] Sotomayor would be the next [Supreme Court] pick, Goldstein was able to roll out analysis of her major opinions within days of the announcement, making him the most sought-after commentator on the nominee,” GQ says.
Hat tip to the Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Blog.
