Balancing the Ideological Scales: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Moderation on the U.S. Supreme Court

IntroductionThe Roberts Court is an interesting era to study because Court decided number of important constitutional issues in past few years and those decisions continue to influence our lives. One example is Chief Justice Robert's vote in National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius ruling. As similar to Chief Justice John Marshall's strategic ruling in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Roberts shrewdly used his decision in NFIB v. Sebelius to defuse potential political storm that preserved prestige of Court while expanding legal philosophy of national supremacy (White 2012, 371). In 2012, Roberts surprised conservatives when he joined with Justice and liberal block of justices to rule that federal government, not states, controls enforcement of immigration laws, decision that blocked most of Arizona's immigration law (Savage 2013, 1). The Chief Justice had worried publicly about acute ideological divisions on Court and impact these have on its institutional (Clayton and Christensen 2008). Jeffrey Rosen described chief as fierce defender of Court and its institutional legitimacy (Farias 2016). Moreover, the chief has made it clear how much he cares about preserving court's in these polarized times, and this term will be real test of that vision (Rosen 2007). If Chief Justice adopts moderate approach to deciding cases, is it to convince public that Supreme Court is above ideology in order to preserve institutional legitimacy?This article analyzes voting behavior of both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice due to their pivotal positions on controlling its decisions in most major constitutional (Clayton and Christensen 2008; Clayton and McMillan 2012). Following Roberts key vote in NFIB v. Sebelius, some legal analysts claimed that Roberts may be establishing his authority over Court and displacing as pivotal justice (Tribe 2012; Winkler 2012). Each year becomes tougher to label Roberts. As chief justice, he must balance his judicial philosophy against court's and his own legacy (Wolf 2015). With untimely death of Justice Scalia, Roberts will have to decide what role he wants to play, whether he should moderate his views to remain in majority, or be confined to a conservative minority on Court (Stern 2016).When siding with majority, role of Chief Justice permits him to assign majority author. This gives Roberts significant control over direction of Court. During his career, Roberts has had more 5-4 splits than any other chief in Court history (Lapidos 2012).For 2012-2013 term, Roberts voted 62% with majority in thirteen out of twenty-one 5-4 decisions (HarvardLaw Review 2013). Moreover, during 2013-2014 Court term, Chief Justice joined majority 73% of time in eight of eleven 5-4 decisions (Harvard Law Review 2014). However for 2014-2015 Court term, Roberts joined majority only 30% in ten 5-4 decisions (HarvardLaw Review 2015).Nevertheless, many Supreme Court observers call contemporary Court Kennedy Court, because Justice is often described as median (Cole 2015). The vote on current Supreme Court usually belongs to Kennedy, who in closely divided cases is in majority leaning conservative. Conversely, has voted liberal more than conservative in 5-4 cases during current term (Parlapiano, Liptak, and Bowers 2015). During 2014-2015 Court term, Justice voted 70% of time with majority in ten 5-4 cases. Moreover, Justice was in majority in 5-4 cases more than any other at 87% during 2012-2013 Court term. There were 23 cases decided 5-4 during that term. was in majority in 20 of them. In 5-4 decisions, sided with conservative bloc 43 percent of time and liberal wing 26 percent of time (Red State: The Supreme Court in Review, 7/1/2013). …