Insider sources have revealed that Chief Justice John Roberts indeed flip-flopped his previous position by deciding at the last minute to affirm the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Jan Crawford, Chief Political and Legal Correspondent at CBS News reports that two unnamed sources familiar with the details of the proceedings have come forward with claims that Chief Justice Roberts caved to eleventh-hour pressures urging support for the ACA, despite having earlier opposed key portions of the legislation.
Early on, it appeared as though Chief Justice Roberts was on the same side as the four other so-called conservative justices who, not unexpectedly, ended up opposing the ACA from beginning to end. But Chief Justice Roberts apparently began to go soft on this position back in May, which triggered a long-fought battle led by Justice Anthony Kennedy to knock some sense back into him. This effort ultimately failed, however, as Chief Justice Roberts simply could not be convinced to stand by his original position.
Chief Justice Roberts and the other four conservative justices were all in agreement just a few months ago that the ACA's individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase health care or else pay fines, was unconstitutional. And even though he continued to reject the constitutionality of the ACA based on the Commerce Clause, Chief Justice Roberts ultimately ended up affirming his final opinion that the health care bill is, indeed, constitutional based on claims that the penalty for non-compliance is just a simple tax.
In response to this perceived betrayal, the other four justices basically shunned any further correspondence with Chief Justice Roberts on the matter, and instead issued their own final dissent to the decision. And this dissent was written in such a way as to imply that it was a majority position, which insiders say is indicative of the four conservative justices' hopeful attempts, up until the very end, to convince Chief Justice Roberts to stick by them and not to surrender to outside pressures.
According to Crawford's account, the language in the dissent is "sweeping," and argues that the court, based on the final opinion delivered by Chief Justice Roberts, is "overreaching in the name of restraint and ignoring key structural protections in the Constitution." You can read the dissent by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito
Posted By Richard to Friends
Of Liberty at 7/11/2012 07:42:00 AM
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