Believe it or not, John Roberts handed conservatives two big wins at the Supreme Court last week, just not the win they wanted. Roberts gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Board and beefed up the argument for the unitary executive. Roberts, in effect, expanded the power of presidents to exercise control over appointees of independent executive branch agencies. The long-term ramifications are significant and structural. He also led the Court in striking down a Montana Supreme Court decision that barred religious schools in Montana from taking advantage of public tax dollars for tuition payments. Nonreligious private schools could participate, but religious ones could not. This is a big religious liberty win.
But Roberts also sided with the Court’s liberals to strike down an abortion case in Louisiana. He would concur not in their reasoning but in their judgment. Roberts took a position based on stare decisis and essentially argued that legislatures putting unnecessary obstacles in the way of exercising rights must be restrained by courts. We will see him pull that language back out in a Biden presidency when the Democrats want to curtail the Second Amendment.
.png)
.png)
