Last week, we attempted to explain why ostensibly conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch, sided with liberal justices in the DACA and LGBT cases.
We suggested that justices sometimes defy predictions to demonstrate they’re apolitical and not in the political pocket of the president who picked them. They thus may seize upon cases that are on the periphery of core issues to make their point.
On Monday, Roberts once again joined the court’s four liberals to invalidate a Louisiana law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital. While abortion is at the very center of conservative concerns, the admission issue can hardly be ranked as heated.
So we reiterate our theory of what could well have motivated Roberts and await the scholarly commentary. For now, we just note the lead editorial in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, which peruses several of Robert’s curious twists and turns and concludes with:
“All of these look like a Justice searching for a legal port, any port, to justify his ruling in a political storm. This will further draw the Court into politics and do even more long-term harm to the judiciary.”