The decisions made by the presumptive "lefter 4" over the last coupla decades, have been considerably more conservative than the decisions made by the "righter 5", IF we define conservatism as respect for precedent and established law. This raises an interesting conundrum in terms of our adjudging their level of partisanship.
Precedent and established law had evolved in what most would describe as a "liberal" direction up until about 20 years ago. Therefore, by doing the CONSERVATIVE thing, the "lefter 4" have been upholding "liberal and/or 'Democratic' law". And on the flipside, by doing the decidedly RADICAL thing, and overturning those "liberal laws", the "righter 5" has been favoring the current iteration of GOPism.
Imagine all that. My biggest disappointment with this Court and Chief Justice Roberts, is that there've been SO many 5-4 decisions. That tends to drive the public's perception that all their decisions ar founded on nothing but Dem vs. GOP. Even as partisanship will always paly a role in our Supreme Court, it's The Court's - and especially the Chief Justice's obligation to at least give the illusion that The Court is above all that. The Chief Justice traditionally does this, by doing his best to orchestrate as many decisions as possible with a greater than 5-4 margin.
