Keeping an eye on Chief Justice Roberts, I see he’s sided with the liberal wing of the Court in connection with an abortion case, as CNN/Politics reports:
The Supreme Court Thursday blocked a Louisiana abortion access law from going into effect for now, dealing a victory to opponents of the law who argued it could decimate “safe and legal” abortions in the state.
The order was 5-4 with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s four liberals voting for the stay. New conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a dissent.
This follows a Federal court putting the law on hold. The SCOTUS decision is not as significant as it might sound:
The Center for Reproductive Rights — representing patients, clinics and doctors in the state — had asked the justices to put the law on hold before it was slated to go into effect on Friday.
Thursday night’s ruling would not prevent the court from eventually agreeing to take up the case and uphold the law in the future. Supporters of abortion rights fear that the court’s conservative majority — solidified by the addition of Donald Trump’s nominees Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — will move to chip away at abortion rights if not eventually all but overturn the landmark Supreme Court opinions of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
But it still constitutes an interesting deviation from what might be termed conservative orthodoxy. A Roberts deviance in a final decision would be far more interesting, of course, and might constitute evidence that Roberts is refusing to bow to conservative pressures – or even that he’s finding more convincing arguments in liberal interpretations than in hard-right interpretations.
This may hold true on social issues, but less so in corporate issues. Remember that Roberts led the effort to make it acceptable to replace our Constitutional right to the Justice system with privately run arbitration systems.
