Obamacare Ruling Fallout

Much more will be learned in the months ahead about the Obamacare ruling, but here is an early summary of the fallout: (1) Chief Justice Roberts went 'wobbly', switched his vote, and became one of recent history's most activist judges; (2) the decision is short on silver linings and long on big-government disasters; (3) those hardest hit by Obamacare taxes are under-$120,000-earners; (4) public opinion of the High Court slipped following the decision; and (6) conservatives are 'mad as hell':


1.  Chief Justice went 'wobbly', switched his vote, and became one of history's most activist judges:

From Steward Baker, volokh.com: "CBS News says it has inside details from two sources: There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the Court – and to Roberts’ reputation – if the Court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld." Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint. It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, “wobbly,” the sources said.

From Carrie Severino, National Review Online:  "Speaking on Face the Nation, Jan Crawford has cited 'two sources with specific knowledge of the Court’s deliberations' who confirm what many here and elsewhere suspected: Chief Justice John Roberts had originally voted with the four conservative justices to invalidate the individual mandate. According to Crawford, the Chief changed sides and then resisted 'a month-long desperate campaign by the conservative justices to bring him back to the fold'...”

From Dave Carter, ricochet.com: "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices, writes the Chief Justice in a sentence I found particularly galling. A police officer might as well tell a battered woman, It's not my job to protect you from the consequence of your marital choices. Police officers understand that it is their job to enforce laws against domestic abuse. The failure to uphold the Constitution on the grounds that to do so would, …protect the people from the consequences of their political choices, is nothing less than a moral abdication of a sacred oath. Taken at face value, the statement would rubber stamp anything Congress passes. So much for preserving the independence of the judiciary."

From Editors, National Review: "The dissent acknowledges that if an ambiguous law can be read in a way that renders it constitutional, it should be. It distinguishes, though, between construing a law charitably and rewriting it.The latter is what Chief Justice John Roberts has done. If Roberts believes that this tactic avoids damage to the Constitution because it does not stretch the Commerce Clause to justify a mandate, he is mistaken. The Constitution does not give the Court the power to rewrite statutes, and Roberts and his colleagues have therefore done violence to it. If the law has been rendered less constitutionally obnoxious, the Court has rendered itself more so. Chief Justice Roberts cannot justly take pride in this legacy."

From Rush Limbaugh: "By Justice Roberts stretching as far as he can to make sure he's not called an activist, he ends up being the most activist judge on the Supreme Court I can recall since Brennan or Douglas."

2. The decision is short on silver linings, long of big-government disasters:

From John Woo, WSJ: "Justice Roberts too may have sacrificed the Constitution's last remaining limits on federal power for very little—a little peace and quiet from attacks during a presidential election year.
Given the advancing age of several of the justices, an Obama second term may see the appointment of up to three new Supreme Court members. A new, solidified liberal majority will easily discard Sebelius's limits on the Commerce Clause and expand the taxing power even further. After the Hughes court switch, FDR replaced retiring Justices with a pro-New Deal majority, and the court upheld any and all expansions of federal power over the economy and society. The court did not overturn a piece of legislation under the Commerce Clause for 60 years."

3. The decision is a massive tax increase on those earning under $120,000.

From Stephen Moore, WSJ (video): "When Congress was debating for months and months, the Obama team argued that the individual mandate 'is not a tax'. This was to spare the White House the embarrassment of admitting that President Obama was violating right out of the box his sacred promise not to tax anyone earning less than $200,000. According to Congressional figures 70% to 75% of the "tax" falls on those who earn less than $200,000 per year, and that is 8 million non-rich people. So Mr. Obama argued this was a mandate and a fine to enforce the requirement to buy health care.  But then in front of the Supreme Court and lower courts, the Obama legal team shifted strategies and argued it was a tax after all. The Supreme Court has traditionally and regrettably granted unlimited taxing authority to the Congress and they did so again on Tuesday..."

4. Public opinion of the High Court slipped after the ruling.

From RasmussenReports:  "A week ago,  36% said the court was doing a good or an excellent job. That’s down to 33% today. However, the big change is a rise in negative perceptions. Today, 28% say the Supreme Court is doing a poor job. That’s up 11 points over the past week..." 

6. Conservatives are 'mad as hell'.

From Byron York, Washington Examiner: "Finally, on Saturday afternoon, I sent out a couple of tweets in which I said: My sense is that conservatives are getting angrier, not calmer, about Roberts opinion. Shocked/confused on Thursday. Angry of Friday. Really angry on Saturday. Unhappiness trending up, not down.  The tweets sparked an outpouring of impassioned responses. A sample..."