Slate
What We Lose as John Roberts Is Sidelined on the Court
New reporting from Joan Biskupic at CNN this week confirms what many court-watchers suspected happened around the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs v Jackson last May: Chief Justice John Roberts was privately lobbying his fellow conservatives—particularly Justice Brett Kavanaugh—to save the core holding of Roe v Wade while ruling on the challenge to Mississippi’s abortion ban. While Roberts ultimately failed to persuade any of the conservative justices to pump the brakes on overturning the nearly fifty-year-old right to terminate a pregnancy, as CNN sources confirm, the leaking of the opinion made any Hail Mary efforts impossible. His internal diplomacy tactics “were thwarted by the sudden public nature of the state of play.” The leak, in other words, served to preserve the preexisting 5-4 battle lines that fell into place after Dobbs was argued.
