Precisely a year ago, as the nation awaited the Supreme Court’s ruling in the challenge to the Affordable Care Act, speculation centered on how much Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cared about the court’s history of standing above political pressure. For whatever reason, Chief Justice Roberts split the baby and upheld Obamacare as a constitutional exercise of Congress’ taxing power. For a year, that quieted talk that history would see the Roberts Court as an activist arm of the Republican National Committee. With its decision Tuesday in Shelby County v. Holder, the court’s five-conservative majority reclaimed its partisan reputation. In an opinion written by the chief justice himself, the...
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