Surprise rulings by Supreme Court justices dash illusion of biased bench

The U.S. Supreme Court over the last couple weeks punctured the illusion of a hard-right conservative bench deeply divided along ideological lines, with a series of surprising rulings that defied easy categorization.  Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., braving criticism and even talk of impeachment from some on the right, sided with the court’s four Democratic appointees to stymy one of President Trump’s biggest priorities.  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch found common cause with the Democrats on a series of criminal justice rulings.  And yet there were moments of striking unity, including on a significant religious liberty case that saw two of the Democratic appointees side with the Republican appointees to uphold a cross memorial on public lands.  A term that began with the swearing in of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who Democrats feared would cement a conservative majority, ended with a flurry of decisions that defy that label.  Republicans who dreamed of a court poised to overturn longtime liberal precedent are now far less certain, while Democrats who complain about a court embracing Mr. Trump at every turn had that argument reduced to rubble.  “Conservatives shouldn’t be dreaming of a revolutionary court that will overturn Roe, and on the flip slide liberals really have no right to be speaking about this arch-conservative majority that has to be restrained,” Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said, referring to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.  One year after the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who used to be the consensus pick for the nine justice court’s center, it’s no longer clear that there’s one single fulcrum.  Chief Justice Roberts staked his claim with his decision, siding with the Democratic appointees, to halt the Trump administration’s rush to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.  Yet he also led the court in ruling that federal judges should not police political gerrymandering fights in the states — a decision that epitomized judicial restraint and drew jeers from liberals who had urged the court to take the playing field on the hot-button issue.  Over the last months he also sided with the Democratic appointees to keep a hold on one of Mr. Trump’s border asylum crackdown policies and joined the Democrats in a ruling preserving federal agencies’ decision-making powers.  “Roberts isn’t motivated by any sort of ideology I can pin point,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law. “He is squarely in the center.”  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch also could lay claim to the center position when it comes to criminal justice and statutory interpretation. In a series of cases he sided with the Democratic appointees to shoot down laws doling out mandatory sentencing or punishment.  He sided with the Democrats in four 5-4 decisions during the nine-month term that just ended.  “He’s really found his own voice. You can call him libertarian,”

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