>>Ironic that you say that, given that it was pure judicial activism that saved ACA in 2012, which was blatantly unconstitutional and even some liberals will quietly

You mean Roberts upholding individual mandate because it is a tax?

At the time, Donald Trump tweeted "Wow, the Supreme Court passed @ObamaCare. I guess Justice Roberts wanted to be part of Georgetown society more than anyone knew." Ouch. Later Trump followed up with "John Roberts arrived in Malta yesterday. Maybe we will get lucky and he will stay there." Apparently nobody noticed the insulting tone until years later after he won an election. ;-)

My question would be: Why should SCOTUS vote along party lines anyway. If decisions were purely constitutional, surely smart legal brains could agree on most consistent interpretations irrelevant of personal advocacy- in fact, you'd expect to see judges deciding against their own beliefs/politics if that's what Constitution or Congress intended. E.g. if individual mandate is not a species of tax that Article 1 Section 8 clearly allocates to Congress, the likes of Ginsburg also reasonably should share such legal interpretation even if not to her liking. Instead, consistent party splits suggest one or both sides is deeply activist; calls to pack SCOTUS with more activists seems to confirm. This is a serious issue for the Republic IMHO, or would be if Trump appointees hadn't already repeatedly disappointed him wrt tax returns and election prospects, contrary to predictions from Schumer, Pelosi and others.