As the Los Angeles Times’ Supreme Court correspondent for the past 20 years, David Savage has been a witness to history. He’ll share his experiences, observations and expertise with USC Law students and faculty at the next “Conversations with the Dean” event, to be held from 12:20 to 1:15 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 5, in Room 7 of the law school. Lunch will be served; food and seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Though he’s not a lawyer, Savage has developed a sterling journalistic reputation as one of the nation’s top legal reporters. In addition to his work for the Los Angeles Times, he writes a monthly column for the ABA Journal and offers regular commentary on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.”
Savage also is the author of Turning Right: the Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court, which chronicles the right-ward shift of the court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose elevation to Chief Justice coincided with Savage’s move to Washington, D.C., to begin covering the court in 1986.
In recent articles, Savage has turned his attention to the Roberts court. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, Savage has written, the court appears poised to move even further to the right.
During his confirmation hearings, Roberts said his job “is to call the balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.” He suggested that modesty, humility and stability in the law were the goals of the “umpire.”
But in several cases during Roberts’ first term, Savage wrote in a Sept. 24, 2006, article for the Times, “he behaved differently, joining Justice Antonin Scalia in dissents that would have rolled back a major environmental law and undercut states’ traditional authority over the practice of medicine. Neither would have qualified as a modest act.”
“On the eve of the court’s new term in October,” Savage added, “the question that was hanging in the air during his confirmation hearings remains: Will the new chief justice seek the right result, or the right’s result?”
Savage has written extensively about many of the most controversial issues facing the court this term, including abortion rights, prison sentencing, immigration and affirmative action in schools.
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