Roberts at 10

How will Chief Justice Roberts vote during this term full of hot button issues? Analyzing his past decade as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States helps give an insight into this very conservative justice who occasionally surprises.

The Constitutional Accountability Center spent a year taking stock of the Chief Justice's first 10 terms. The lead coordinator of the project, CAC Appellate Counsel Brianne Gorod, points out that on every vote limiting access to the courts, Roberts has been in the majority; he's dissented every time the Supreme Court has voted not to limit access to the courts. That may come into play when Roberts votes in two of this term's important access to courts cases: Spokeo and Campbell-Ewald.

One area where Roberts has shown no signs of movement is race, says CAC Civil Rights Director David Gans. Roberts consistently voted to roll back civil rights protections, and he joined Alito's dissent in the Fair Housing Act racial minorities case. He's also moved sharply to the right by altering the Voting Rights Act, letting companies spend unlimited money through Citizens United, and striking down federal limits on campaign contributions. This term's Evenwel v. Abbott "one-person-one-vote" case is uncharted territory for the Court. But when Roberts was Deputy SG, he filed a brief urging the Justices not to hear a similar case since the Constitution explicitly requires total population as the standard for Congressional districting, it would be incongruous to say that the 14th Amendment prohibits the states from drawing district lines on total population. Of course he isn't bound by his prior advocacy, says David, but it is a very persuasive argument.

Roberts is also deeply concerned with the institutional legitimacy of the Court and his record as Chief Justice. Since the Affordable Care Act decision, Brianne tells us there have been at least 10 decisions where Roberts separated himself from the other conservative justices. This leaves an opening for his vote on one case currently pending before the Fifth Circuit that may soon come before the Supreme Court—a challenge against Obama's executive action on immigration. After a year of examining Robert's record—reading his opinions, confirmation testimonies, speeches and articles he's written—there remain cases where it's easy to predict his vote, Brianne says, and others where it's impossible.