But WHY would he switch??
***A combination of things, most likely. Here’s just a start:
Roberts is a wuss, so if zer0bama threatened him, he’d fold.
Roberts values being a scotus justice more than he values the constitution.
zer0bama has goons that could have gotten to him.
The guy probably would fold if he was only threatened with having a reduced air conditioning budget.
Once justices go into the mindwarp zone of DC, they lose their constitutionalist perspective and their respect for the law.
Roberts dislikes confrontation with the executive branch.
SCOTUS and Roberts are, in fact, part of the government. And, history and the evidence shows that in the long term, SCOTUS will not stand in the way of the expansion of the power of the government as it is part of that system.
Roberts’ action was consistent with this premise.
Roberts values being a scotus justice more than he values the constitution. zer0bama has goons that could have gotten to him. The guy probably would fold if he was only threatened with having a reduced air conditioning budget. Once justices go into the mindwarp zone of DC, they lose their constitutionalist perspective and their respect for the law. Roberts dislikes confrontation with the executive branch.I think all of that is true but the fact remains that Roberts appears to have thrown Obama a curve ball. Yes ObamaCare survived and yes that's bad, but the fact cannot be dismissed that it survived as a TAX and that fact alone will make it easier to defeat Obama and all democrats in the fall.
Did Roberts throw that curve ball because he has a gimp RINO arm, or because he's a master craftsmen and used that pitch as a surgical strike to remove The One from office?
I don't know, and I don't care.
What I'm going to focus on, here in FR, in conversations with friends and co-workers, in posts to other forums and in my political volunteer work this summer and fall is one thing and one thing only:
The democrats are the party of TAXES and we need to get them out.
He probably wants a shoutout at the next State of the Union
speech,or they showed him the pictures of his “youth.”
I have a theory that GOP Elites commanded Roberts to switch. This has played right in to Mitt Romneys and Republicans hands (donations, polling and passion are all up). The Holder contempt vote was timed to coincide in an attempt to placate conservatives. Are we being played for suckers?
There is one possible motive for Roberts switching that really makes me hope is reality: that Ginsberg told Roberts that if he voted with the conservatives, she would resign immediately and Obama would get another SCOTUS appointment but she would hang on until January and let whoever is elected get that.
IF that be truth, and by energizing the conservative voters to elect Romney and a more conservative Senate, Ginsberg may not only have assured the ultimate downfall of ZeroCare, but allowed Roberts to have a less liberal Court in the future. In addition, the way he wrote the opinion, I believe he made it clear that overturning it will be able to be done through the budget (non-filibuster) process, he made clear he doesn’t think word games should be played in legislation (tax vs. penalty), and what really made Ginsberg upset is his clearly letting Congress know that invoking the “commerce clause” to justify ZeroCare or any version of it would NOT be acceptable in his view.
Very deep chess game if this is the correct scenario, but I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility. It is also a very major gambit, but as a Chess Player, I have found that even major gambits can be extremely sound.
Here’s what dirtboy has to say about it. It seems the most rational perspective at this time.
The scary thing is, I don’t think Roberts had to be blackmailed into this decision. He basically has stated his position regarding judicial restraint in the past, and his decision was in line with that view - with a dollop of transmogrification of the word ‘tax’ thrown in to make it possible.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2901298/posts?page=8#8