WASHINGTON – Just as he was in the Supreme Court term, which ended in early July, Chief Justice John Roberts has emerged as the deciding vote when disputes over the coronavirus pandemic end in court.
Since April, the Supreme Court has seen a stream of emergency appeals to overturn public health decisions by lower courts involving voting rights, prison conditions and religious practice.
The eight associate justices have generally divided ideological rules, with liberals typically voting to take measures aimed at combating the spread of Covid-19, and conservatives the opposite. The votes seem to reflect the party division in the general public over public health policies. Ninety percent of Democrats surveyed in the WSJ / NBC News poll last month, for example, said they preferred a candidate who focused mostly on public health measures to stop the coronavirus, while more than the half of Republicans preferred one that focused primarily on reopening the economy.
But the outcomes of the cases seem to have less to do with approaches to the coronavirus and more with underlying problems, with conservatives skeptical about claims about voting rights and prison conditions, while deferential to religious organizations, and liberals tend to hold opposing views.
Chief Justice Roberts has stood apart, orchestrating a series of decisions that do not uniformly fit a partisan form. His approach followed a different principle: paying attention to local, state and federal authorities against legal challenges.
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