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Since becoming chief justice 10 years ago, John G. Roberts Jr. has been determined to show that the court he leads is made up of impartial jurists, not politicians in robes. In the phrase he used at his confirmation hearings, each justice is "like an umpire" at a baseball game — not favoring one team over the other. On Thursday, Roberts showed again his willingness to brush aside partisan politics and forge a middle ground on some of nation's most divisive issues, writing a 6-3 decision that upheld the broad reach of President Obama's healthcare law. (Savage,6/25)

On Thursday, for a second time, he wrote the ruling that preserved President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. The ruling, however, made clear the chief justice is building another kind of legacy, one in which he is trying to keep the Supreme Court out of Congress’s way in important and potentially divisive policy areas. (Kendall, 6/25)

Conservatives were left baffled after Chief Justice John Roberts saved Obamacare three years ago. On Thursday, as the George W. Bush appointee again helped President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement avoid a potentially devastating blow, they felt betrayed. Adding to the sting: The chief justice wasn’t just along for the ride. When the court’s ruling allowing the law’s insurance subsidies to be offered nationwide emerged, he wrote the majority opinion and delivered it from the bench. (Gerstein, 6/25)

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s laugh line in his health-care ruling dissent — “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare” – resonated on Capitol Hill. A number of House Republicans expressed frustration with Chief Justice John Roberts and his majority opinion upholding federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. It was the second time Chief Justice Roberts sided with the majority to keep key parts of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic initiative, leaving some conservatives questioning his conservative principles. (Stanley-Becker and Peterson, 6/25

The Supreme Court ruling Thursday is the second time Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia have squared off on President Obama's health-care reform law. The chief justice wrote the decision upholding the law the first time it came before the court in 2012, and Scalia dissented. Roberts used the dissent's own words against Scalia in the case decided this week, which focused on what Congress was trying to do when it passed the Affordable Care Act, generally known as Obamacare. (Ehrenfreund, 6/25)

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his conservative colleagues may have been overruled in Thursday's decision upholding ObamaCare subsidies, but they didn't go down without a fight. (6/25)

If blockbuster Supreme Court battles ended the way sports championships do, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli would be soaked in champagne and showered with Gatorade. And Jones Day partner Michael Carvin, the lawyer for the losing plaintiffs, would glumly file back into a hushed locker room. ... And once again, Mr. Verrilli prevailed, when Chief Justice Roberts united with the court’s liberal wing in refusing to dismantle the health law. (Gershman, 6/25)