Long ago I read Borks book ‘The Tempting of America’ on court decisions and he explained how if you side with the progressive justices you get heaps of media praise and party invitations, otherwise you get scorn and ridicule.
MSNBC, Obama, congression Dems, etc have been on TV DAILY specifically warning Roberts not to side with the conservative three, especially if it will lead to 5 to 4 decisions.
There are decades of New Deal precedents since FDR that are somewhat consistent with this watered down ‘tax/fine’ ‘mandate’ approach, so I didnt have my hopes up regardless of Republican hype.
Let me shock you, I bet Romney and Boehner secretly wanted the whole bill upheld for purely political reasons. They were scared it would be overturned and the spotlight might point at them.
All the predictions here in comments that the whole bill would be thrown out was massive wishful thinking, it was always down to a single justice, and I swore off wishful thinking in GWB second term.
Prior to this morning I had actually thought the law, specifically the individual mandate would be struck down.
This morning I woke up thinking there was a good chance I might be surprised at the ruling.
With the report the individual mandate had been ruled unconstitutional, I thought we had a victory. I never imagined Roberts would ‘create a tax’ against what Congress had as a single voice claimed they were not doing.
Roberts had every opportunity to study and understand Congress’ intentions here. There was plenty of public evidence that Congress had forcefully denied they were creating a tax.
Roberts should have held them to that. It seems to me that if you are a believer in original intent for some things, you should be in favor of it for other things. Evidently Roberts is quite selective in his belief in ‘Original Intent’.
I confess that there is the possibility that this will actually hurt obama in the election, but time will tell. It is like a complicated chess game and the results of single moves are not always immediately apparent.
Though this is a bit like sacrificing your queen.
That doesn't shock me. I had a similar but less cynical thought, maybe they'd want it upheld not cause they were "scared" but because they'd find it advantageous to still have the issue to run on in November. But I doubt if Roberts was thinking about the election.
Sickoflibs: it looks like Roberts found his horse’s head in his bed.
stephenjohnbanker: I have a very bad feeling that Roberts family was threatened......a VERY bad feeling.
I don't buy it for a second. Maybe he was bribed but he's probably just a FRIGGIN idiot.