Sahil Kapur at Talkingpointsmemo quotes prominent law professors claiming that Chief Justice Roberts is concerned with preserving the integrity of the Supreme Court and that’s why he won’t go along with the current suit targeting Obamacare.
Please.
If Justice Roberts does vote to allow the intention of the law to be upheld–thereby adhering to a bedrock principal of judicial construction–it will be to give himself cover to continue to take an acetylene torch to democracy as it has previously existed in this country, to continue his attack on civil society as we’ve known it, on the rights of the individual vs. the corporation, on the right to vote, et. al., et. al.
Kapur himself understands that while Robert voted to save Obamacare in 2012, he did so as a means to an end, to advance radical conservative ideology, by calling the requirement that people be insured a penalty. He was also able then to simulate the appearance of objectivity while actually diminishing the law by ruling that the states could opt out of Medicaid expansion.
As previously noted on talkingpoints, the defense in the current litigation is advancing the argument that the integrity of the SC rests on its not getting behind a blatently political law suit. That of course is true–the last semblance of credibility and objectivity will go out the window if Roberts sides with the rest of the right-wing-extremist majority.