It’s a safer bet just to assume Judge Roberts will side with the Libs on at least 75% of his ‘5th vote’ decisions.
That way, I don’t feel so let down. Not the way I felt when this judge kept ObamaCare alive by twisting legal definitions.
Not the way I felt when this judge kept ObamaCare alive by twisting legal definitions.
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Yep. He sure did. Twisted any logic he could find in order to justify placating the left and their attempt to destroy our country. Good job, there! Smirk-Boy!
"Judge Roberts ... kept ObamaCare alive by twisting legal definitions."
Fellow, fellows, no one can beat me for being a conservative, but you need to understand at least EXACTLY what Roberts did when he upheld Obamacare. And don't accuse me of being a lib, I am as far right as they come but I am a technical man and also a bit of a constitutional scholar.
Roberts voted with the conservative majority on Obamacare, initially. But he did not vote to overturn the entire 2,000 page monstrosity; he only voted to overturn the individual mandate. Why? Because he thinks that citizens should live with the decisions made by their legislators. So you don't make the romantic decision that conservatives want, overturn it all, you make the decision consistent with judicial restraint. Only overturn the few lines about the mandate.
But the other conservative justices disagreed. Overturn it all, they wanted. So Roberts had to make a choice. Abandon his principle of judicial restraint and side with Scalia, Thomas et.al., or switch votes and ... this is important ... get some concesssions from the lib justices in exchange for his vote?
He chose the latter. Yes, he had to do some written contortions to accept the fact that a mandate was instead a tax, but to him this seemed less egregious than overturning 98% of a law that was fully consistent with the constitution.
But the concessions he got from Ginsburg et. al. were very significant. He got them to agree to narrowing significantly the use of the Commerce Clause for bypassing the 10th Amendment. Clarence Thomas was no doubt thrilled with that. He also got them to agree that the Feds can't use witholding money from another program as a bribe, or a cudgel, to force states to act a certain way. Obamacare would have taken away Medicare funding for states who didn't set up exchanges; that's some serious arm twisting. But in exchange for the mandate, the libs agreed that this was unconstitutional. This has always been the source of the Fed's greatest power, get you dependent on their money and then threaten to take it away for another reason. Roberts deep sixed that.
So with Roberts' legal maneuver, the states could blow off doing a state exchange without penalty. THIS IS WHAT DESTROYED OBAMACARE OVER THE PAST 4 YEARS. Without the ability to force states to act, Obamacare imploded on its own.
This was clear back in 2012, when the SCOTUS decided on Obamacare. It gave us what we wanted, just over a longer timeframe. I think Roberts knew exactly what he was doing.
So cut him some slack. He got us some major concessions and, from the perspective of a veteran Supreme Court watcher, he won for us in the end.
He didn't get rolled, he made a very clever legal gambit. Just remember that.