The chief justice’s embrace of bipartisan judicial restraint in the second Affordable Care Act case was consistent with his embrace of the same philosophy in the first Affordable Care Act case in 2012, where he quoted one of his heroes, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr: “The rule is settled that as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.”

By construing the Affordable Care Act, twice, in ways that respect Congress’s broader purposes rather than thwarting them, Chief Justice Roberts was not, as Justice Scalia charged, rewriting the law. Instead he was advancing the view that he championed soon after his confirmation: In a polarized age, it is important for the Supreme Court to maintain its institutional legitimacy by deferring to the political branches.

The chief justice’s dissent on Friday from the court’s 5-to-4 decision recognizing a right of same-sex marriage defended precisely the same vision. Once again, he quoted Justice Holmes for the same proposition that he invoked in the Affordable Care Act cases: “As this Court has been reminded throughout our history, the Constitution ‘is made for people of fundamentally differing views.’ ”