Dobbs and Chief Justice Roberts

There are a number of things I find interesting or ironic about the Chief’s role in Dobbs. Labeled an institutionalist, a moderate, a man to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court — in the most contentious legal issue of the last 50 years, he writes alone. The point of being a moderate is that you attract people from the poles, building an enduring consensus, activating the “vital center.” And yet, perhaps because of his unprincipled reasoning, or perhaps because of the polarization of the Court itself, he’s not able to convince anyone to join him in his opinion. The middle way is not always the right way, and in the case of Roberts, it’s not always the path most traveled, not always the most popular position.

The other less important thing I find interesting — his mentor and boss Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented in Roe and wanted to overrule it in Casey. The popular image of Roberts was that he was meant to be another Rehnquist. Not an originalist like Scalia or Thomas, he was destined to be Rehnquist’s intellectual successor. So how does he end up so different from Rehnquist’s view on Roe and Casey? That I don’t really know.