Oversimplified Attack on the Supreme Court
I do not accept Political Cartoonist Michael Ramirez’ take on the Roberts Court’s ruling on ObamaCare.
I believe that the conservative coalitions in this country will look back five years from now and applaud John Roberts counter-majoritarian ruling.
First of all, he placed an impenetrable hedge around the Common Clause, assuring for future case rulings an precedents that the federal government will never be able to compel economic behavior from the American people as a subsidiary power under the Commerce Clause.
By enhancing the power of the politically poisonous power to tax, Roberts has effectively handed Obama a back-handed compliment, one which allows him to brag of a few minutes about the constitutionality of a mandate which was unpopular before the ruling, and now not only remains unpopular, but is sustained by an even more unpopular argument, one which the President attempted and failed to make, even to liberal-sympathizer George Stephanopoulos.
The fact that Roberts was able to drag the four liberal justices to sign on to the limiting of the Commerce Clause is another feat which the mainstream media and conservative pundits have also ignored.
Let us not forget that Chief Justice John Roberts has ruled handily and consistently with the conservative block of the Supreme Court, and the ObamaCare ruling is so sudden a departure for the Chief Justice, that without a doubt he more likely can barely contain his incredulity at the law, yet sought to protect the legacy, integrity, and independence of the Court.
A 5-4 ruling against ObamaCare would have resigned every Republican president to the mired inevitability of stonewalled and filibustered judicial nominees to the federal courts. Roberts has also added some centralizing firepower to future Supreme Court nominees of a conservative bent, in which liberal Senators will not be able to cite a Roberts ruling as glaring example of unwanted politicization of the Judicial Branch.
The votes are ready for Romney, Republican majorities, and Repeal of ObamaCare. Roberts will be rewarded in the future for this brilliant move.
