Jun 28 2012

Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act

 

Some might find it odd that Justice John Roberts joined with the politically liberal side of the U.S. Supreme Court in providing a 5-4 majority ruling Thursday upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

I am not.

The more I have learned about Roberts through his role as Supreme Court chief justice, the more I believe he is a reasoned judge capable of setting politics and personal agenda aside when it comes to legal decisions.

That bodes well for Americans, whether you agree with his position on the healthcare law or the immigration law in Arizona.

On the other side of the equation, this time Justice Anthony Kennedy went off like a July 4 bottle rocket Thursday while reading his scathing minority dissent from the bench.

With the immigration ruling, that job belonged to Justice Antonin Scalia, who called out President Barack Obama from the bench. His salty dissent led columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. to suggest that Scalia should resign from the court because he clearly lets his politics outweigh jurisprudence.

Sorry, E.J., but that is not going happen.

If it did, it might result from Scalia’s growing frustration with Roberts. Now, the battle shifts to the fall election, and the pledge by Republican candidate Mitt Romney that getting the law repealed will become his first order of business.

I hinted in my previous post on the immigration ruling that Roberts’ move from the politically conservative side of the aisle in that decision boded well for the chances of the healthcare law.

If he chooses, Roberts, a very young man by Supreme Court standards, will be around for a long time. I believe he will be a steadying influence on the court and might have the ability to guide some of its members back to the law and away from partisan politics — except for Scalia and his shadows, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. No one ever knows where Kennedy will land.

And going forward, Scalia might find himself courting Roberts rather than trying to rely on Kennedy to provide a swing vote.

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