“Your job, not mine. I won’t make it easy for you.”
What he actually said was “ “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
Well we don’t live in a simple democracy, we live in a CONSTITUTIONAL republic. Meaning that even if the people through their political choices elect representatives that would vote to restrict, say, freedom of speech, that would be an act that the supreme court would be obliged to strike down.
Any law that violates the constitution is “illegal” and it is the duty of the supreme court to invalidate it, or else we’re no longer a constitutional republic. That was the whole purpose of the constitution - to put certain basic rights beyond the reach of simple politics - in a way, to protect people from themselves, from their shortsightedness.
Given that this law violated the constitution through its mandate it should have been struck down. If the proponents wanted it bad enough they could have rewritten it to comply with the constitution and try passing it again.
Roberts instead chose to rewrite it himself and deem his new version passed by congress.
This stands as one of the most cowardly, incompetent and damaging rulings since Roe v Wade and the privacy argument.
Krauthammer is a fool to believe that this sordid episode has enhanced or “repaired” the court’s reputation. All it has done is elevated the scorn for it on the right and taught the left that Roberts can be easily intimidated.
A really sad day for America.
As I said to before - It is the job of the Supreme Court to specify laws that are unconstitutional. That is a simple and emphatic role that they were assigned. If they decide to go political, that means throwing out the Constitution. No argument, no discussion. If you think that they ignored the Constitution, then they were wrong and not upholding the Constitution as written.
If you think that they were making a political ploy, or caving to a political party then you have just accepted that the rule of law is invalid.