Roberts could [hijack the Obamacare ruling] in 2012 because the court was split 4-4 with himself in the middle. All he had to do was persuade himself. This time, however, Roberts finds himself on the outside looking into a five-seat conservative majority. If anything, Thomas (and Alito) want to make sure that Roberts doesn’t keep playing politics by issuing judicially and constitutionally incoherent rulings just to keep favor with the press and the Beltway elite. Given what we know about Thomas, he probably sees that as the poison that led to this moment, and that the best antidote is to make sure you don’t get another dose of it.
Not so easy this time
From Ed Morissey at HotAir:
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This is why I believe that Roberts is in the mix. The leak would seem to present a benefit to his project of pulling the court back from overturning Roe, and while the idea that a liberal clerk decided to burn the Court down over Roe has a certain plausibility, deciphering a more specific benefit to the liberal side from the leak is more difficult. I tend to discount the 'leaked to preserve the majority' theory but that reaction would have to be taken into account by a liberal leaker, as well as the knowledge that the very best they could hope for is preserving Roe. If they manage to split the Court 4-2-3 then they would still have to decide if preserving Roe is worth voting to uphold the Mississippi statute since I can't see any way one of the current five, or Roberts, would switch all the way to overturning it. If the benefit was to be primarily political, releasing the opinion early seems to be no benefit at all since it was due to come out this summer anyway and it now risks getting lost in other events.
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