John Roberts is a bit of a riddle.
If you ask a die-hard liberal, they’ll tell you he’s the architect of a conservative revolution that’s dismantling decades of settled law. Ask a MAGA-loyalist, and you might hear he’s a "RINO" or a "traitor" because he didn’t single-handedly overturn the Affordable Care Act in 2012 or hand the 2020 election to Donald Trump.
Honestly, both sides are kinda missing the point.
The man sitting in the center of the Supreme Court bench isn't just a vote; he's an institutionalist trying to keep a 237-year-old ship from capsizing in a hurricane of hyper-partisanship. Sometimes that means he votes with the conservatives to gut the Voting Rights Act. Other times, it means he joins the liberals to protect the "DACA" program or uphold federal agency power—at least until he doesn’t.
The Umpire Who Started a Fire
You probably remember his confirmation hearing back in 2005. It’s the one where he used the now-famous baseball analogy. He said his job was just to "call balls and strikes."
It was a brilliant bit of PR. It made the law sound like a neutral, objective game where the rules are clear and the judge is just a guy in a black robe with a whistle. But 21 years into his tenure, nobody really believes that anymore. The "strike zone" has shifted massively to the right, and Roberts has been the one holding the brush to paint the new lines.
Take the 2024-2025 term. This was a massive year for the Roberts Court.
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In Trump v. United States (2024), Roberts wrote the majority opinion that basically redefined the American presidency. He laid out a framework where a former president has "absolute immunity" for actions within their "conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" and "presumptive immunity" for all other official acts.
Critics say he gave the presidency a "king-like" status. Roberts, however, argued he was simply protecting the office from being used as a political football by future administrations. He’s obsessed with the long game. He doesn’t care about the news cycle today; he cares about how the Court looks in the history books in 2126.
Why he’s not the "moderate" you think he is
There’s this persistent myth that John Roberts is a moderate. He’s not.
His voting record is consistently conservative. Whether it’s gun rights (United States v. Rahimi), religious freedom (Fulton v. Philadelphia), or dismantling affirmative action (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard), Roberts is a reliable soldier for the conservative legal movement.
The difference is incrementalism.
Roberts hates "jolt" to the system. He famously didn't join the full majority in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade right away. He wanted to uphold the Mississippi law but keep Roe on life support for a little longer. He prefers to saw through a branch slowly rather than use a chainsaw.
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- 2013: He guts the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, saying "the South has changed."
- 2024: He overrules Chevron deference in Loper Bright, stripping power from federal agencies like the EPA and the FDA.
- 2025: He leads the Court through a barrage of "shadow docket" cases, often siding with the executive branch on emergency motions regarding immigration and federal personnel.
The 2026 Reality: An Isolated Chief?
As of early 2026, Roberts finds himself in a weird spot.
For years, he was the "median justice"—the guy in the middle who decided every case. But with the addition of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, the Court has a 6-3 conservative supermajority. They don't actually need him anymore.
If Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito want to go "full scorched earth" on a precedent, they can do it without Roberts. This has forced the Chief into a corner. He either joins them to keep control of who writes the opinion, or he dissents and loses his influence entirely.
His 2025 Year-End Report was telling. He didn't talk about the massive cases involving the second Trump administration or the chaos on the border. Instead, he gave a history lesson on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
He’s trying to remind everyone—the public, the President, and maybe even his own colleagues—that federal judges must be independent. He quoted the Declaration of Independence to make a point about judges not being "dependent on the Will" of a leader. It was a subtle, "Roberts-style" warning.
How to actually track his influence
If you want to understand where Roberts is going next, don't look at the spicy headlines. Look at the Standing and Jurisdiction sections of his opinions.
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Roberts is a master of "procedural exits." If he thinks a case is too politically toxic, he’ll find a way to say the person suing doesn't have the right to be there in the first place. It’s his way of "punting" the ball to live another day.
Key cases to watch in the 2025-2026 term:
- Louisiana v. Callais: A major Voting Rights Act case that could further erode minority representation.
- Learning Resources v. Trump: A massive test of presidential power regarding international tariffs and emergency economic acts.
- Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections: A technical but vital case about who gets to challenge election rules.
Actionable Insights for the Legal Watcher
To really get what's happening in the Roberts Court, you've got to stop viewing it through a simple Democrat vs. Republican lens. It's more of a "Stability vs. Ideology" battle.
- Read the Concurrences: Roberts often writes separate "concurring" opinions. These are his roadmaps. He’s telling you exactly how he wants the next case to be argued so he can rule the way he wants without looking like a radical.
- Follow the Shadow Docket: Most of the "real" action now happens in late-night emergency orders. Roberts has been surprisingly deferential to the executive branch here, even when he stays quiet on the merits.
- Watch the Oral Arguments: Roberts is a stickler for "hypotheticals." If a lawyer can't answer his "what if" scenario, they’ve already lost his vote.
John Roberts isn't trying to be a hero or a villain. He’s trying to be the curator of an institution he fears is slipping into irrelevance. Whether his "umpire" act is a sincere effort to save the Court or a clever mask for a conservative takeover is something historians will be arguing about long after he hangs up the robe.
For now, pay attention to the silence between the rulings. That's usually where Roberts is doing his most important work.
To stay ahead of the Court's impact on your specific industry or civil rights, you should regularly monitor the Supreme Court's "Orders List" released on Monday mornings. This is where the justices signal which precedents are next on the chopping block by choosing which cases to hear in the upcoming term. Focusing on the "Question Presented" in these granted cases provides the most accurate forecast of federal law changes six to twelve months before they actually happen.