preview the battle over the next justice:
[A]ccording to Hatch and McConnell, judges are activist if they refuse to strike down federal laws that Republicans oppose. [...] In other words, on the most pressing national disputes of our dayfrom campaign finance to health care reform and financial reformconservatives are embracing the very definition of judicial activism they spent the past 40 years denouncing, asking unelected judges to reverse their defeats in the political arena and all the while redefining this strategy as judicial restraint.
[...D]uring the Warren era, activism usually meant asking the Supreme Court to bring a few state outliers into line with a national consensuson racial discrimination, for example. By contrast, Roberts Court-era conservatives are urging unelected judges to strike down landmark federal laws that passed over their objections, at least some of which command broad national support.