Roberts Draws in Court’s Liberal Bloc

Chief Justice John Roberts “joined with unexpected allies–his liberal colleagues–in an alliance that drew some of the Supreme Court’s major decisions closer toward the ideological middle in the term just concluded,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The approach separated the chief justice, who has been on the court nine terms, from the other conservative justices–who ended up breaking with him at times.”

“The balancing act sometimes left conservatives such as Justice Antonin Scalia fuming over what they saw as missed opportunities to reduce the federal government’s treaty powers, curb environmental regulation and relax limits on antiabortion activism outside women’s clinics.”