Adam Liptak writes.

His view is similar to mine on the importance of the Chief Justice in this case. He writes:

The court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has so far been consistently hostile to campaign finance limits in its half-dozen decisions in argued cases on the subject so far. The five more conservative justices have voted together in all of those cases, though Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. have taken a more incremental approach than the bolder one called for by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Justice Kennedy, the swing vote in other areas of the law, has long been a skeptic of campaign finance restrictions. “Buckley has not worked,” he wrote in 2000. If defenders of aggregate limits have hope of a victory or a limited loss, it probably rests with Chief Justice Roberts.