The Roberts Court

     Since the end of 2005, following the death of William Rehnquist, John G. Roberts has acted as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Traditionally in American history, it is possible to differentiate each court based on the particular chief justice, whether it be the Warren Court in possessing the central focus of civil rights or John Marshall's court being characterized as ensuring are rights to the federal government as opposed to state legislatures, but with the Robert's Court, it is much more ambiguous. This is largely due to the increasing polarization among the members on the bench, as four of the members usually decide to the left; those being Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer; and those who normally side with the conservative perspective of the case being Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and Antonin Scalia (now deceased). It has ultimately been Anthony Kennedy, a registered Republican, through numerous occurrences, has acted as the deciding swing vote for the court. Despite the current split upon the bench, two trends are able to be identified in the manner of the Supreme Court rulings through the past twelve years: there has tended to be a liberal swing in dealing with civil rights and a more conservative approach when concerning the usage of firearms and the control of corporate business. Landmark cases like Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 and National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius in 2012 allowed for the legalization of gay marriage and the approval of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, respectively, both expressing a similar liberal ruling. Other pivotal cases including District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby in 2014 legalized firearms for self-defense and all regions of the country (including D.C.) and permitted private companies to invoke their religious beliefs and enact policies that abide by their belief system (in this case, the owners of Hobby Lobby possessed Christian beliefs and were allowed to restrict contraceptive care to their employees), respectively.
     Today, with the intense wavering and frequent voting along party lines, the future of the Roberts Court remains largely unseen. The recent death of Antonin Scalia in 2016 allowed for new incumbent Justice Neil Gorsuch to be appointed to take his place this past April, and due to the limited time he has already spent on the Supreme Court, there is no true idea of how and what he will decide for in upcoming cases. During his confirmation hearings in 2005, Roberts aspired for a limited and moderate court, but with reviewing the pivotal cases heard and their accompanying landmark rulings to them in the past twelve years, Roberts' original aspiration has not yet been achieved. Hopefully, in the next few years or so, individuals will be able to draw more defined trends from the Court during this time and what its total results were from both past and future cases.

  
The Supreme Court in 2016                                             Neil Gorsuch

Works Cited:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/09/28/supreme-court-john-roberts-conservative-liberal/72399618/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/landmark-cases-john-roberts-decade-chief-justice-article-1.2378637
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290