That's the law for you. "Disciplined legal reasoning" and being willing to go against conviction (trading positions for that fifth vote) are mutually exclusive.
He could have left out the phrase "even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote." It's not necessary to make the point. Maybe this is his way of sharing a bit of inside baseball.
Sounded to me like he was talking about a bargain to bring in one of the liberals. But he wouldn’t embrace such arrant nonsense as began this Brave New Reformulation of what a right means in the USA. Now it’s some free floating Entitlement.
So what free floating Entitlement gets the first place, going forward? Is this now a situation of Squeakiest Wheel Always Gets The Grease?
Will Christendom be able to resist the temptation to cheapen itself while going for the obvious hole here? (”Well, what about our rights too?” while remembering that those are bestowed by God and not by men and so if men refuse they cannot negate them.)