The question is why did Roberts climb so far out on such a shaky limb. The opinion he wrote on the status of ObamaCare under the Commerce Clause is profound and sure-footed. In contrast, his opinion on the tax issues seems to have been written by a different person who is far from a master of the subject, and himself not fully convinced, but feels compelled to uphold ObamaCare.
The ObamaCare saga may signal a new kind of "activist" judicial philosophy that, given Roberts' young age and the advanced years of many of the other justices, may in time develop into the "Roberts Court." The chief justice says it is the duty of the court to uphold what Congress and the president do if it possibly can, and, in this case, he actively sought to do so, going well beyond what the dissenting justices and many others seem to think is reasonable.
In the future, instead of the court going to great lengths to protect individuals from government, as many liberals and conservatives have done in the past, and instead of trying to preserve the rightful role of the states in a federal system, as many conservatives have so often tried to do, the court under Roberts' leadership may primarily seek to protect the growing power of the federal government from court challenges by those who disagree with its decisions.
If that is the course taken by the Roberts court, and if it refuses to protect people from the excesses of presidents and members of Congress who by hook or crook have managed to get themselves elected, liberty will suffer.
Roberts believed he was doing two things by upholding ObamaCare: he was settling the issue of whether the mandate is a tax (it is), thus protecting the Commerce Clause, and he was preventing the further delegitimization of the Supreme Court by the Democrats, thus improving its general reputation. He failed on both counts.
Roberts extended an open hand to the administration and its allies only to find, as a favorite White House metaphor would have it, a clenched fist. But he shouldn’t have been surprised—nor should he be surprised to read the recent polling showing his Court to have lost some of the public’s respect. Apparently, bowing to pressure and issuing a ruling consistent neither with constitutional law nor public opinion won’t endear him to the people.
But Roberts’s ruling should have at least settled the tax issue. After all, the bill only survives because the mandate must be labeled a tax... Here [Press Secretary Jay] Carney unleashes the chutzpah:
“With regard to the penalty as was discussed by Chief Justice Roberts in his opinion, for those who could afford health insurance but choose to remain uninsured — forcing the rest of us to pay for their care — a penalty is administered as part of the Affordable Care Act.”
Far from settling the question, then, Roberts’s decision has rendered the Court’s opinion irrelevant. The debate about ObamaCare continues as if there were no Supreme Court ruling, only now there’s no judicial oversight waiting on the horizon. Roberts seems to have accomplished nothing with this ruling except diminishing the Court’s standing.
Today, specifically, the youngest potential voters are more likely than their older peers to think it is important to protect individual liberties from government, the Harvard data suggest, and less likely to think it is important to tackle things like claimate change. health care or immigration.NYTimes article: "Stung by Recession, Young Voters Shed Image as Obama Brigade"
Mr. Tevlin, for instance, found the Supreme Court ruling upholding Mr. Obama’s health care law troubling. “I don’t think the government should force you to buy anything,” he said.
