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[carminaburana]

July 1, 2012 1:29 PMRoberts switched views to uphold health care law
ByJan Crawford

(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals

Comments

[screamingintune]

Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

After reading The Nine, this doesn't surprise me. Kennedy holds the most coveted spot on the Court -- the swing vote. And if there's one thing that book taught me, it's that Justices like being in the position of being the swing vote. Roberts stole that from him on a rather huge decision.

Anyway, this was clearly about his legacy and trying to repair the Court's image. There have been rising charges that the Court is too political and how no matter what the case, they vote along party lines. I also think that conservatives need to be careful at how much shade they throw Roberts' way. Piss him off enough, he might become the next Souter. And you can't vote out a Supreme Court Justice, only the icy hand of death can stop them before they choose to retire.

[romp]

My political scientist colleagues are geeking out over this as if it were Katie Holmes's divorce

Hee!

[moonshaz]

LOL!

[sesmo]

I'm betting on Scalia as the leaker. He has very little regard for judicial behavior, or anyone else's beliefs.

P.S. Someone needs to reread Wickard v. Filburn if they think no one has been forced to buy something they could grow themselves.

[agentsculder]

I could totally see Scalia and Thomas being the leakers. Kennedy a bit less so. When I was in law school (I went to school in the DC area) he came to our school to talk, and he came across as a very smart, principled man who loves what he does. He was nice to all students, answered questions, and didn't talk down to us.

When Scalia came, it was the opposite. I didn't attend that time (mostly because I don't like him), but I heard from people who did he talked down to students and came off being something of a misogynist. Also, incredibly full of himself.

[beoweasel]

Scalia has always held this sense of entitlement, he thinks he's this grand guardian of the Constitution, and believes he's adhering to the opinions and vaules of the Founding Fathers. :P

[sesmo]

Agreed. Scalia has been flouting the basic rules of judicial ethics for most of his career, and as far as I can tell he is getting lauded for it. So doing this seems right up his alley. Scalia is a smart man, but that's te only positive thing I can say about him.

[the_glow_worm]

omfg I knew it. Scalia's dissent definitely referred to the majority opinion as the "dissent" multiple times. He was writing as if his opinion was the majority opinion at one point.

[crossfire]

I thought that was super-weird, but now it makes sense.

[sesmo]

Which is particularly amusing because pretty much everyone knew that Roberts would be writing the majority opinion.

[the_glow_worm]

lol! I suppose it could just be Scalia bein' Scalia.

[agentsculder]

If anybody else here is a Supreme Court geek, if you can get your hands on The Brethren (it's out of print) it's an AWESOME read. It covers the court from the late sixties into the early seventies, and it is FULL on inside dirt on how all the cases in that period were decided. The authors were able to get unpresidented access into every single justice's chambers. And no one is really sure HOW they did it either.

[mandrill]

"The Brethren" is back in print and Amazon carries it for $13! The book was reissued in 2005.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Brethren-Inside-Supreme-Court/dp/0743274024/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341233156&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Brethren

[pepsquad]

buying now!

[screamingintune]

I might have to check that out. I couldn't put down The Nine when I read it.