Chief Justice Roberts Sides With Court’s Liberal Wing

is Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Store. Greg, what's this all about? Well, there's an unmistakable pattern now, and I don't want to make too much out of this, but the Chief Justice has been repeatedly joining with the liberal wing, not always, but in many occasions, uh, typically doing something narrow or procedural, but at a minimum, he is um putting the brakes on, let's say, any in a sharp turn to the right now that Brett Kavanaugh

was on the court. Is he following his true conservative compass or is he thinking about his legacy? Yeah, it may be, uh, you know, some of both going on here. Um. It is again important not to make too much out of this. We haven't seen, for example, what he will do when he's actually having to decide, say, an abortion case on the Merits. A couple of weeks ago, he did join the liberals in blocking a Louisiana law that would have required abortion doctors who perform abortions to get

admitting privileges at a local hospital. That law is is almost identical to a Texas law he voted against a couple of years ago. The Court may end up taking up that case on the Merits next term. The fact that the Chief joined the liberals in and not letting it take effect right now, UH is very interesting, um.

And it may mean something for what he's gonna say on the marriage, but it might not in those conservative instincts that you talked about, UH man being what carries the day when he actually has to decide that case. I wonder in the history of the Supreme Court, is there any for lack of a bit of word, precedent for this where UH justice has has sort of swung one way or the other to prevent the Court from

going too far in either direction. There are certainly there's certainly plenty of precedents for justices who have uh, turned one direction or another, mostly left once they've joined the court and proven more liberal than we thought they were going to be, or that people thought they were going to be at the time. About Earl Warren, right, sure, Earl Warren, David Suitor, Harry Blackman, John Paul Stevens. I mean, the list is is quite long if you're looking at

Republican appointees who ended up being fairly liberal in this case. Uh, you know John Roberts. You know, he's been on the court four since, since two thousand five, and he's established himself as a pretty you know, a solidly conservative guy, uh you know, in in the vast majority of cases. But he's also somebody who cares a lot about the Court's institutional reputation. And and he's made pretty clear that he doesn't want the Court looking like a partisan institution.

He's he's very sensitive to the idea that people might perceive this Court as being now kind of a tool of the Republican party, uh, you know, siding with with the administration reflexively, and so, uh you know, this may just be his way of slowing things down and saying we are not automatically just because we tend to be a bit more conservative. We're not automatically gonna go for the conservative result in every case and and certainly not

siding with the Trump administration in every case. Well, this court has uh sort of tried to avoid or duck some of them or contentious issues, perhaps to stay out of politics. Yeah, that's that's a really interesting point. Uh. You know. One pattern of this term, the first full term, the first term with Brett Cavana on it is that that the Court has really deferred a lot of issues.

So there are some some pending appeals involving things like the doccer program, the def deportation program that that President Trump is trying to eliminate. There's a several appeals on the question of whether the federal job discrimination Law Title seven covers sexual orientation and gender identity. And the Court has deferred acting on those. Uh they if they take

up those cases, it won't be until next term. Uh you know, so, you know, and the Chief Justice seems to be behind at least some of that, kicking issues down the road rather than confronting them right away. Its Cavina voting on decisions as as expected. Um, he he is. He's sort of so far and again it's very early with him uh kind of straddling the camps of Sometimes he goes with Roberts and and even along with the liberals.

There are a couple of decisions this week opinions this week, one of which he went with that group in a six to three decision. UM and sometimes he votes with the more conservative block of Justice is Thomas uh and Gorseitch and Alito. Again, it's still very early to see um. Uh, you know, we really don't know what kind of justice he's going to be yet, but for the time being, he is sort of in the center right of the court. If we were going to try to uh to prove

that justice uh Roberts is shifting left. Is there any case ahead that would sort of be a test case we could we could be watching that. There are a couple of big cases is probably the two biggest cases of this term have yet to be argued. One involves there's actually two of them, but it's it's basically one issue involving partisan jerrymandering, which is an issue of the Court has had before and whether uh uh partisan jerrymanders

can be challenged in court. Uh. That's an issue where we saw a partisan divide before or an ideological divide excuse me before where the conservatives, uh generally don't like to to to let jerrymanders be challenged. So that's a big one. And then the second one is this case involving whether the Trump administration can Trump administration can add a question about citizenship to the census. Again, that's going

to be an ideological divide um. And at this point it's it's really anybody's guess how the Chief Justice might vote in that case. I want to shift gears to make sure we ask about Justice Ginsburg for a moment. She just returned to the court after some health challenges. How's she doing. Yeah, she seems to be, you know, going full steam again, every bit as much engaged, um as she was before the cancer surgery that she had late last year. Um. When she came back to the

court after being being away for a couple of months. Uh, the very first opportunity she had an opinion to to deliver, making clear that she had been working while she was recuperating. Uh. She's about to turn eighty six. I think it's two weeks from today she turns eighty six, But no indications right now that she's slowing down, not that she would signal anything, but no indication that there are any plans for her too to retire. No, and and you know

she has used that phrase full steam. She said she will keep doing this job as long as she can do a full steam. Uh she did uh miss a round of arguments, but uh, you know, is now back and seems to be going full steam. And so it's hard to imagine that she that she will retire anytime soon. I watched the documentary. She could do more push ups than me can push ups, She can do squads and uh, yes she is um uh you know by all indications, Uh, you know, a woman who can do an all off,

all lot but stuff, both physically and mentally. At this stage, that wouldn't be saying much for me though. Bloomberg News a Supreme Court reporter Greg Store, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg