Posted on 07/08/2012 12:38:20 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
...... Just as Justice Owen Roberts' switch was attributed to the political storm of Democrat opposition to the Court's reversal of New Deal legislation, there is a widely cited report....that Chief Justice John Roberts had originally sided with the conservative dissenters in the ObamaCare decision, but changed his vote because of concerns about the political prestige of the Court in the eyes of the media and Washington elites.
Owen Roberts destroyed his judicial papers. However..... He acknowledged that the Supreme Court's pro-New Deal decisions "reduce the states to administrative districts rather than coordinate sovereigns" and that his switch reached "a result never contemplated when the Constitution was adopted, was a subterfuge." However, he justified the switch as necessary to avoid "even more radical changes" in the constitutional structure. He did not specify what "radical changes" he feared, but in the aftermath of FDR's landslide re-election in 1936, many might have seemed possible.
Again, we do not know now if John Roberts changed his vote, and why he did if he did. However, there was clearly a storm of Democrat vituperation brewing and set to break loose in the event that the Court overturned ObamaCare. Just as Owen Roberts started voting pro-New Deal in order to preserve the Court from FDR's machinations, so John Roberts may have voted to save the Court from the fury of a left and leftist president who would have forever after invoked an anti-ObamaCare decision in rejecting the legitimacy of every other Supreme Court decision they did not like. And, just as Owen Roberts' switch to preserve the Court unleashed our modern massive and pervasive federal regulatory state, so John Roberts' effort to save the Court's prestige will allow that regulatory state to grow ever more massive and pervasive.....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The fury of the right that will now come against the Court will be far worse than anything the left could have brought.
My thoughts too.
I guess the “fury” of the Right can’t hold a candle to the “fury” of the Left.
I wasn’t clear in my last post. My initial reaction to the idea of John Roberts bending his decision due to fear of the Left’s reaction was, what about fear of the rest of the country’s reaction, or the damage to the country?
The fury of the right that will now come against the Court will be far worse than anything the left could have brought.
Let’s hope so. What the article doesn’t explain, however, is that the left, in Owen’s time, was dominant; the New Deal had majority support. John’s decision inexplicably broke AGAINST the public’s majority opinion. Though both Robertses disgraced the bench, Owen Roberts had the excuse that Congress & the Pres. were accurately representing the will of the people. John Roberts’ excuse seems to be nothing more than a bid for media praise.
The left’s game is blackmail. Do they have something on Roberts? What does it matter? We’ll never know. And we’ll never know the reason for his decision.
Seems to me the only possible upside is it could translate into more votes against Obama and the democrats. But that’s just a guess.
Some justice once said the constitution is not a suicide pact. Never mind the legal subtleties, this in and of itself is enough to strike down Obamacare.
With it in place we are living in a dictatorship. Had Roberts changed his vote, chances of a turnaround would have been greater.
Great point. Leaves pondering that Roberts has been a closet leftist not completely in loony tune land.
translation = f**k the constitution
There’s nothing to explain, Justice Roberts.
You’re an *sshole and you’ve weakened the constitution at a time when it’s in critical condition and weakened the nation at a time when it, too, is in critical condition.
Let’s leave it at that.
No apology is necessary and no apology will suffice.
The name by wich we refer to this decision which will forever live in infamy must be “Roberts vs. The Constitution.”
Roberts wanted a legacy. Let’s give him one.
To which I say...FTSCOTUS!
The Left, as always, was ready to shut down cities.
I do not discount the possibility of word getting to Roberts that voting to shoot down Obamacare could be hazardous to his family's health.
Nothing John Roberts did or could do; will save the Supreme Court from the determined machinations of the Left. Worse; an 'Imperial Presidency'; has walked; and scored and with that; John Roberts has aided and abetted Marxist Mind/Rule; in our Government.
There is no 'saving the Court'; when America's Freedom is at stake - and ultimately loses - by an essentially; 'illigitimate' vote.
Yes, yes; Roberts included an inflatable life raft. America deserved more, however; but was denied.
In his first major opportunity to support the Constitution he abandoned it in favor of concern over the image of the court.It shows a character weakness, if you ask me. He should resign. He blackened his own name and reduced the stature of the Court itself. Holding him in contempt is letting him off too easy.
No MO can be discounted. Hearing the brazen rhetoric/threats from Obama; one might easily imagine; what was being said/done out of public view'; in the name of the 'Party' which holds to 'No Rules of Engagement - like 'other' enemies we are so threatened with.
(And If true; like any kidnapping - in this case; the illigitimate taking 'of America' - the PERP; should have been reported/exposed for his efforts. There is no Wisdom and no Justice; our going on 'mute'.)
Pay me now; or pay me later. . .or both, for that matter.
Would it be impolite to suggest that Justice Roberts needs to be waterboarded to find out why he really made the decision he did...
C-Span has run an informative program from the CATO institute, several times since the decision. I’m sure it’s in their archives now and probably won’t run again.
One of the presenters said something that I’ve said, in asking questions about the meaning of the ruling. He’s the only one I’ve heard put it into the exact words I was pondering, and suggesting, in my question.
He said the ruling did not uphold Obamacare. He said the Court ruled it unconstitutional for purposes of the suit brought by the 26 states, but not struck down because it could survive under a different scheme than the suit argued, namely the tax.
However, I remember Rush saying that RBG and the other libs were angry that Roberts even mentioned the tax justification, because she and they wanted it upheld under the original suit basis, the Commerce Clause. He mentioned that she dissented from Robert’s construct about the tax power.
I have asked repeatedly, what did a majority of the Court agree to. What did five justices actually put on paper that was essentially the same so that it could be seen as a majority ruling, that will live on to establish precedent on the taxing power.
???
Even THIS informative program didn’t answer that question that haunts me.
I still don’t know. I know for certain the law was not struck down, only because Roberts abandoned the four who voted to strike it down, and joined the libs in saving it, but according to Rush in the aftermath, Roberts was using the tax excuse, not the other justices.
IF, and I say IF because I still don’t know, five agreed to save it but five did not agree it was under taxing authority, then I do not see how one man, or at least less than five, can say it was a tax and not only thereby save it but also establish a precedent that the feds can tax anything you don’t do that they don’t like.
Again, ???
The CATO institute program had experts that have labored long over studying these issues and are super analysts. They went on to give great hope that this law has holes through it like a sieve, and will have great difficulty standing because it simply does not work.
They said the ruling that allows the states to refuse Medicaid expansion without being punished as the feds want to punish them, is a big probem for the law and will help it fall.
They also said the way the law is written, and what it leaves out, allows the states to not set up state exchanges and does not provide the feds, who it says can step in and set up exchanges, the actual wherewithal to do it.
And you can’t get a subsidy from a federal exchange, according to the law itself. So if you qualify for a subsidy under the mandate, you still can’t get one if your state refuses to set up an exchange.
They went on to say that the insurance industry would be literally wiped out, ruined forever, as well as employer provided coverage, if the law as written is attempted to be implemented, whether states refuse or not.
To which I say, that was the most likely reason for this law. To destroy the private insurance industry and employer provided coverage, so there would be nothing left but the federal government to handle health insurance.
So much for Obama’s lie that if you like the health insurance you have now, you can keep it.
Grounds for impeachment, in my book, that. If there were any justice in this world.
The CATO people have read every word of the 2700 pages. They are amazing.
Check out the C-Span archive if you want the weeds on the ACA itself, and the ruling.
As for Roberts, he is judged by history and the American people by the standard set with the four....Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy....who willingly voted to kill this law while Roberts BLINKED.
If they could stand up to the pressure, and Roberts couldn’t, there you have it.
He doesn’t belong there.
But unfortunately he IS there.
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