Rare among the nation’s chief justices, John Roberts has found himself operating often as a swing vote in the middle, turning apparent conservative majorities into gossamer liberal victories on major issues like Obamacare and access to abortion.
To the consternation of the right, the chief justice appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005, a judge with an unblemished conservative resume, has gained an unlikely reputation as a moderating force on a court with a firmly conservative identity, steering it away from decisions with a party-line flavor that would overturn longstanding precedent.
So dramatic has been this shift that it is easy to forget the other John Roberts, whom no one will remember as a moderate.That would be the chief justice whose jurisprudence has in recent years upended precedents on voting rights and enabled the current move across the South to roll back laws liberalizing access to the polls, especially for people of color. That John Roberts first showed his hand clearly when the Supreme Court granted Latino civil rights lawyers from Texas a rare and significant victory under the landmark Voting Rights Act more than two decades ago.
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