Roberts switched views to uphold health care law

[Geee]

CBS News:

 

(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

The inner-workings of the Supreme Court are almost impossible to penetrate. The Court's private conferences, when the justices discuss cases and cast their initial votes, include only the nine members - no law clerks or secretaries are permitted. The justices are notoriously close-lipped, and their law clerks must agree to keep matters completely confidential.

But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts' unusual shift has spread widely within the Court, and is known among law clerks, chambers' aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them.

After the historic oral arguments in March, the two knowledgeable sources said, Roberts and the four conservatives were poised to strike down at least the individual mandate. There were other issues being argued - severability and the Medicaid extension - but the mandate was the ballgame.

It required individuals to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Congress had never before in the history of the nation ordered Americans to buy a product from a private company as part of its broad powers to regulate commerce. Opponents argued that the law exceeded Congress' power under the Constitution, and an Atlanta-based federal appeals court agreed.

The Atlanta-based federal appeals court said Congress didn't have that kind of expansive power, and it struck down the mandate as unconstitutional.

[righteousmomma]

This is very upsetting for us all. Especially if we watched and rooted for Roberts at his testy confirmation heating. However I keep thinking that we should all have been suspiscious of anyone who dressed his little boy like Little Lord Flaunteroy and seemingly had no discipline of said child at times.

[Casino67]

The Supreme Court does not leak. Are we really to believe this from CBS?

 

 

Did the Obama going to Paris story make me too cynical?

[Evad]

Bribed, blackmailed or brain freeze.

He has violated his oath in the worst possible manner.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

 

All these stories still don't tell me Why...Why he changed his mind. I do think John Roberts (or someone who is in the know) owes us an answer to this question.

[logicnreason]

Yes...I'm preaching to the choir here...and I realize that fully.

 

NOW do we all know why it is critical that the stain be eradicated this November??

 

It is possible that within the next four calendar years, four of the SC judges will have reached the end of their time.

 

That means the then president will appoint four new justices - FOUR! And they will remain in their chairs for at least the next 15 to 20 year!

 

If what the court has just done upsets us....imagine a court with 7 out of 9 liberal judges making law!!

 

It is time to eradicate the stain NOW!

[righteousmomma]

Rush is so angry about Roberts. He also says Roberts probably caved to the "blackmail" of media coverage etc.

He is also blasting pundits on our side trying to find a silver lining in Roberts' betrayal.

Pelosi and her "free riders" comments about did me in.

[Saltbag]

The point of lifetime terms was to prevent the pressure of re-election in swaying their decision.

 

I think we need a new paradigm on how SCOTUS works.

[NCTexan]

This is very upsetting for us all. Especially if we watched and rooted for Roberts at his testy confirmation heating. However I keep thinking that we should all have been suspiscious of anyone who dressed his little boy like Little Lord Flaunteroy and seemingly had no discipline of said child at times.

 

'nuf said....

 

[Valin]

It’s the Cowardice that Burns the Most

Bryan Preston

7/2/12

 

I continue to believe that, all other things considered, removing ObamaCare via repeal rather than court decision is the preferable small-d democratic thing to do, and is ultimately better for the country. Forty years plus of judicial activism have shown than when courts legislate, they divide and do damage to the nation. Roe v Wade for instance did not settle anything, but has set off decades of intractable social war.

 

But as reports emerge of the twists that led Chief Justice John Roberts to switch his vote and uphold ObamaCare on the ground that the individual mandate is a tax, an unsettling truth comes clear: The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court is a reed in the political wind.

 

I hate to be so critical of a man I admired but have never met, but if the reports are accurate, then here is what happened. Roberts was among the justices who wanted to strike ObamaCare down on the constitutionality of the individual mandate as it relates to Congress’ powers under the commerce clause. Those justices constituted a majority but they may have disagreed over whether the mandate was severable from the rest of the law. At the same time, a campaign of media pressure from the left got to Roberts, and as the pressure mounted, he caved and switched his vote to uphold the law.

 

(Snip)