Yep. Sotomayor will almost never vote with the conservative 'block' on non-unanimous decisions. Gorsuch, on the other hand, will hold with a death grip to what

Yep. Sotomayor will almost never vote with the conservative 'block' on non-unanimous decisions. Gorsuch, on the other hand, will hold with a death grip to what he believes the intent of the writer of the law/Constitution was, rather to some desired outcome. Textualist value the 'system' over immediate outcome, because they really believe they are there to call 'balls and strikes,' hewing as close to the 'rules of the game' as possible. Someone like Roberts takes the whole enchilada into account- precedent, public reaction, political impact, historical judgement, interactions between the justices themselves, but coming from a conservative PoV, I assume because he thinks thats part of his job as Chief Justice. I, personally, prefer the textualist approach. It allows the separation of powers to mean something and makes the law at least theoretically responsive to the people via their elected representatives. If the majority wants the law to change, they have the means to do so without waiting for a new set of justices. Those who want to bypass that by hoping their 'team' stack's the deck- well that only works for non-textualists. Trump is finding out, to his intense disappointment, that all those textualists he nominated to the bench, care not a whit for getting things done for him, but just what the law is, as it is written. So the left should be mighty pleased that the 'other side' doesn't play the game by their rules, and that in this area, at the least, they may want to change their approach.