ok, NOW i'm worried...
Jun. 29th, 2012 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearThere's the big question of why did Roberts become the swing. More importantly (to those reading in detail) why did he change his mind so late in the process (like his namesake did in '37).
My belief: Roberts didn't do it to "protect the supreme court". He did it to save Scalia. He did it to protect the Wickard wide-reading of the Commerce Clause that had proven so useful for other conservative decisions like the federal ban on medical marijuana (what should be a 'states rights' issue) and the federal ban on assisted suicide (ditto).
Scalia's dissent, which if you read it right was originally meant to be the decision, as it mentions Ginsberg's "dissent" (that wasn't, it became a concurrence) several times, matched with a recent document he wrote recently basically saying that SCOTUS overreached in Wickard and that the wide reading of Commerce (which he himself used in his decisions on those two cases) was wrong. They (Scalia, Alito, Thomas) were going to restore limits on the Commerce Clause solely to get rid of the health care law.
Roberts wouldn't let them do it.
He must have a reason. There is (and it will likely take me days to find it) an upcoming case where a Wickard-style wide-reading of the Commerce Clause is going to be the critical decider, and it must be one that is bigger than somethign as simple as charging 4 million people $500 a year for opting out of insurance. He wasn't saving SCOTUS from being seen as partisan (far too late for that). He is saving the Commerce Clause itself for more important conservative things ahead, real business issues rather than a simple social issue (one that fiscal conservatives actually like as they're the ones that came up with it 16 years ago).
My belief: Roberts didn't do it to "protect the supreme court". He did it to save Scalia. He did it to protect the Wickard wide-reading of the Commerce Clause that had proven so useful for other conservative decisions like the federal ban on medical marijuana (what should be a 'states rights' issue) and the federal ban on assisted suicide (ditto).
Scalia's dissent, which if you read it right was originally meant to be the decision, as it mentions Ginsberg's "dissent" (that wasn't, it became a concurrence) several times, matched with a recent document he wrote recently basically saying that SCOTUS overreached in Wickard and that the wide reading of Commerce (which he himself used in his decisions on those two cases) was wrong. They (Scalia, Alito, Thomas) were going to restore limits on the Commerce Clause solely to get rid of the health care law.
Roberts wouldn't let them do it.
He must have a reason. There is (and it will likely take me days to find it) an upcoming case where a Wickard-style wide-reading of the Commerce Clause is going to be the critical decider, and it must be one that is bigger than somethign as simple as charging 4 million people $500 a year for opting out of insurance. He wasn't saving SCOTUS from being seen as partisan (far too late for that). He is saving the Commerce Clause itself for more important conservative things ahead, real business issues rather than a simple social issue (one that fiscal conservatives actually like as they're the ones that came up with it 16 years ago).
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Date: 2012-06-30 02:31 am (UTC)Roberts is playing the long game.
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Date: 2012-07-01 11:22 am (UTC)