Discuss areas in which the U.S. Supreme Court conservatives have parted from the conservative movement in the recent past.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. In recent years, the nature of the Court's conservatism has come into sharper focus. It is a mistake to equate the ideology of the Court's majority with the conservatism, say, of the Republicans in Congress or with the ideology of the conservative movement. To be sure, there are members of the Court who are unmistakably movement conservatives-that is, members in good standing of the conservative movement. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are in this camp. Yet Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts-and even Justice Alito-often "march to their own drummer."A leading example was Chief Justice Roberts's 2015 ruling on Obamacare. In King v. Burwell, the question was how to interpret the text of the Affordable Care Act. The case focused on one clause in a long bill (the act is about the length of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). The clause referred to subsidies granted to low-income individuals who used state exchanges to buy health-care insurance. The federal exchange was not mentioned. Opponents of Obamacare argued that subsidies for the federal exchange were contrary to the plain text of the legislation. In a six-to-three majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts found that it was clear from the language of the bill taken as a whole that Congress meant to grant federal exchange subsidies. The ruling angered many conservatives.Another area in which Court conservatives have parted from the conservative movement is that of gay rights. Justice Kennedy, in particular, has favored gay rights ever since Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 ruling that abolished laws against homosexual acts. Kennedy joined with the Court's liberals in that case, providing the fifth vote that decided the issue. Kennedy's vote was also decisive in later gay rights cases, such as Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that established a right to same-sex marriage in all fifty states.