John Glover Roberts Jr. became the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come.
The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts — a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. — as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month. All of the Senate’s majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts.
