Ok, and I believe that the main difference between TX and LA, is that in TX he was free to issue whatever ruling and reasoning he wanted, knowing that it would have no real-world impact.
In LA, he understood that his ruling would have a massive real-world impact, and he decided which side of that he wanted to be on and then found a reasoning to back it up.
Similar to how the GOP-led Congress passed 8 million bills repealing the ACA when Obama was Prez, and then once they had power it was a totally different story, and they couldnāt actually get it across the line.
I think these guys are all political animals, and while they may be vaguely constrained by some ālegal principlesā, they are essentially trying to advance whatever long term political agenda they favor.
In Roberts case perhaps heās playing the long game by trying to build up the popularity and legitimacy of the court so he can advance some rulings later that he considers more important to the GOP project.
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Pleasantly surprised, that bill was atrocious.
Roberts, above all else, wants to maintain the institution of the Supreme Court. That is his highest principle. His main goal might be to avoid a scenario where Democrats pack the court after gaining control of the White House and both houses of Congress. This goal is furthered by avoiding making Democrats too mad. He will pick the outcome that does this, then work backwards to find the least harmful reasoning that gets there.
Where the reputation of the Court is not in jeopardy, then he feels free to vote based on his personal preference.
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I think this is absolutely the case. From all that Iāve ever read about him, Roberts has been laser focused on preserving the legitimacy of the court as an institution. From my perspective, that becomes fairly indistinguishable from ruling on principle. āIām not ruling on principle - actually, Iām selfishly ruling in this particular way so that future generations will think Iām ruling on principle.ā Iām ok if you have no principles, but always act in a way that you accurately perceive people with principles would approve of.
Fits with Vonnegut: āWe are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.ā
On the other hand, if this is part of a longer game where Roberts uses that perceived legitimacy to advance a bunch of terrible causes, Iāll be absolutely wrong.
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Well in terms of being predictive of future actions, thereās a fairly big difference between actually acting on principles and pretending to rule on principles so you can more effectively advance your goals.
So Iām not sure I agree with them being āfairly indistinguishableā (if your goal is to predict future outcomes).
Maybe he learned something from the Voting Rights Act case. Like, it is at least possible that he was a true believer, but changed course when he saw the catastrophic real world consequences of right wing judicial ideology. His swing vote in that case gave the green light for monstrous, race-based voter suppression in every GOP-controlled state, wiping out legislative gains that took centuries. I can never forgive that, but maybe he learned from it.
That is an awfully earnest speculation. Iād love to believe thatās possible.
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Iām seeing speculation on Twitter that Roberts was paying attention during the impeachment trial and realized the GOP is ignoring their duties.
He stepped in and āsavedā the ACA though, well before that.
Iāll add my completely baseless theory - Roberts feels there are times when he is ātaggedā to keep the GOP in sanity territory. Whereas the other 4 know which way Roberts is leaning, so they can feel free to posture and bloviate all they want.
So how do you explain Citizens United and gutting the VRA? Someone on old 22 and Iām sure still on this forum called it ācountry club white supremacyā. Fear of the browns gaining the demographic advantage and voting to redistribute the wealth.
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I love you Riverman but I laughed out loud at you not with you.
Iād go to war for that magnificent viking shield maiden as well. #Aryanlovesuicidepact /offensive posting
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Roberts seems like the only one with the awareness that the actual grift is doing a cosplay so gas-huffing bigots will keep voting for corporate welfare. If five true believers start enacting radical minority opinions then weāre gonna burn all of the cities down and he knows it. Remember when Harry Reid and that Joe Barton guy were supposedly huge friends of poker? Itās just a vaudeville act to take your money and vote.
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I believe that this a good article:
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And if my understanding is correct, this is because Roberts as part of the majority gets to assign who writes the opinion. Worth noting, just in case anyone was starting to think too highly of him.
Yeah, I think you and I are closer on this than it may have seemed - I think this is a really good article and I agree with all of it.
This assumes that there was a firm majority when the opinion was written. It could have started out as a dissent, but Roberts switched his opinion and joined or Roberts could have been non-committal and the Courtās liberal bloc decided that an opinion by Breyer offered their best chance of swaying a vote that Roberts signaled was up for grabs.
I think Roberts picks who writes the majority, and any justice who wants can write their own concurrence or dissent. IIRC there are a few landmark decisions where every justice wrote an opinion, but I could be making that up.
Furman v Georgia, NY Times v US
This is depressingly persuasive.