Roberts seems really, really annoyed with his colleagues, in a very passive aggressive fashion. He accused the other conservatives with Lochnerism. He accused them of acting like “unelected” and “unaccountable” judges. And his charge is directed at the Court’s newest member, Justice Kavanaugh. Perhaps Justice Alito didn’t join the Kavanaugh dissent to stay out of Roberts’s fire. If so, Alito’s move ,may prove shrewd.

Roberts may be laying down a marker. Is this decision Chief Roberts’s Harry Blackmun moment? Is he signaling that he will now go full-bore judicial restraint? Is he breaking up with the conservatives on the Court? I hope I am not reading too much into a few citations. But Roberts can say a lot with few words.This concurrence is an inauspicious sign for conservatives, as this term draws to a close.