SCOTUS Strikes Down Outdated Voter Law, Mayhem Ensues

Nutshell:

Odd to see a black president & black attorney general claim the nation hasn’t made progress on racial issues in the past 50 years.

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) June 25, 2013

The Roberts Opinion: A Clearinghouse of Analysis

It’s been a week since the release of the Roberts Opinion on Obamacare. This may be the most significant opinion in decades so I’ve aggregated the various opinions on the opinion as a resource for fellow bloggers. This list is only from those I consider intellectually honest. If you want to hear what Ezra Klein or Ben Smith have to say, Google is right there. Have at it.

Opinion Supporters:
–George Will

Silver Lining:
–Roger Kimball
–Erick Erickson
–Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
–R. Emmett Tyrrell

Opinion Detractors:
–Rush Limbaugh
–Mark Levin
–Fred Thompson
–John Yoo
–Nick Gillespie
–Thomas Sowell
–Andrew McCarthy
–Michael Walsh
–John Podhoretz
–Peter Wehner
–Victor Davis Hanson
–Bob Barr

This list is of course incomplete. If you know of others that should be added, let me know in the comments section.

Happy Dependence Day!

While Chris Rock calls July 4th “white peoples independence day,” perhaps he can take some solace (or for his ilk, schadenfreude) in the fact that white people are working hard to enslave themselves and make July 4th a meaningless holiday. Soon we will all be the same, Chris; won’t that be grand?

The Taxing Power, My Dear

As much as it pains me to soil my blog with a link from The Daily Beast, Jonathan Alter does have a pretty interesting story from way back in 1934 that is relevant today (Hat tip: Hot Air emphasis mine):

But Perkins was worried. The Supreme Court was moving toward a narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause that would invalidate many of the great achievements of the New Deal. Soon that would include the National Recovery Act, the capstone of FDR’s famous First Hundred Days in 1933.

(It would be another four years before Justice Owen Roberts—no relation—would famously switch sides and the Court would begin reversing itself, partly in response to FDR’s 1937 “court packing” scheme.)

Perkins went to dinner at the home of someone lost to history and recalls in her memoirs that she bumped into Justice Harlan Fiske Stone there.

When Perkins expressed worry about whether an old-age and survivors insurance program would pass constitutional muster, Stone, a Republican appointee to the court and future chief justice, replied: “The taxing power of the federal government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.”

Yes, the seeds were planted long ago. We should’ve listened to Sheriff John Brown.

John Roberts Ruling Day 2: Obamacare Hangover

I think I can speak for a lot of folks in the Blogosphere when I say that yesterday was mentally draining. I read opinion after opinion on the Roberts’s ruling and listened to various talk show hosts talk about the legal and political ramifications. Now, 24 hours later I’m not sure there’s any more clarity. Conjecture is still the name of the game.

I think Charles Krauthammer has it right when he says Roberts was doing everything he could to avoid another Bush v. Gore. When you think about it, what other explanation can there be? The notion that he’s “evolved” like other Supreme Court Souteresque disappointments seems weak to me. This is a guy who belonged to the Federalists Society. But, like Charles says, he’s the Chief Justice and protector of the court. He could have sided with the 4 conservatives and struck down the whole thing but this “it’s a tax” opinion is the ultimate nuance that allows him to protect the commerce clause but avoid the metaphorical (and perhaps real) Molotov cocktails that would have been flung at the Court had it been that 5-4 decision. Not saying he was right to play it this way, just speculating that that’s probably the reasoning. It’s a gamble, like something out of John Grisham legal thriller. Perhaps he is hoping this will lead to political change and perhaps some conservative justices in the future. If Romney gets elected twice, the chances of Ruth Bader Ginsburg outliving his terms are slim. That’s morbid, but no doubt the thought is on a lot of minds.

Here’s something to chew on: What Roberts did, in my mind, was clearly judicial activism but of an unusual sort. He declared Obamacare a tax and threw the whole issue right back to the people of the United States, essentially saying “We’re not gonna bail you out when you screw up at the ballot box anymore.” Thus, did this one act of judicial activism serve to limit the power of the Judicial Branch more than any other decision in history. In other words, is this Obamacare Supreme Court decision the anti-Marbury v. Madison?

Chew away.

John Roberts: Traitor or Diabolical Genius? A Roundup of Opinion

The opinions on the SCOTUS Obamacare ruling are coming fast and furious and they seem to be pretty split. (By the way, I’m talking about conservative pundits, the only ones who opine in good faith.)

We start with Rush Limbaugh:

The administration and the Congress said, “No, it’s not a tax!” Arguing before the court, they said, “No, it’s not a tax!” Then a couple of whispers, “Yes, it is a tax.” The chief justice says (paraphrased), “I can’t forbid this. It’s not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices. I gotta find a way. Congress wants this, so I gotta find a way to make it happen. Okay, we’ll call it a tax, and that makes it perfectly legal.” So today the sovereign nature of the individual wasn’t just weakened; it was eviscerated.

George Will:

Conservatives won a substantial victory Thursday. The physics of American politics — actions provoking reactions — continues to move the crucial debate, about the nature of the American regime, toward conservatism. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has served this cause.

[…]

By persuading the court to reject a Commerce Clause rationale for a president’s signature act, the conservative legal insurgency against Obamacare has won a huge victory for the long haul. This victory will help revive a venerable tradition of America’s political culture, that of viewing congressional actions with a skeptical constitutional squint, searching for congruence with the Constitution’s architecture of enumerated powers. By rejecting the Commerce Clause rationale, Thursday’s decision reaffirmed the Constitution’s foundational premise: Enumerated powers are necessarily limited because, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, “the enumeration presupposes something not enumerated.” 

Mark Levin:

There’s nothing about the Obamacare decision that is redeeming.  Nothing.  I will talk about it at length on my show tonight – 6 PM eastern.  There are lawyers and political operatives spinning this decision, but don’t buy any of it. 

Charles Krauthammer:
 

How to reconcile the two imperatives — one philosophical and the other institutional? Assign yourself the task of writing the majority opinion. Find the ultimate finesse that manages to uphold the law, but only on the most narrow of grounds — interpreting the individual mandate as merely a tax, something generally within the power of Congress.

Result? The law stands, thus obviating any charge that a partisan court overturned duly passed legislation. And yet at the same time, the Commerce Clause is reined in. By denying that it could justify the imposition of an individual mandate, Roberts draws the line against the inexorable decades-old expansion of congressional power under the Commerce Clause fig leaf.
Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce Clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers reaffirmed.

That’s not how I would have ruled. I think the “mandate is merely a tax” argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that. (The “tax” is obviously punitive, regulatory and intended to compel.) Perhaps that’s not how Roberts would have ruled had he been just an associate justice, and not the chief. But that’s how he did rule.

And perhaps most interestingly, the changing opinion of Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General for Virginia who was a leading voice in the case:

Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli told The Daily Caller that after reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision on President Barack Obama’s health care law, he’s changed his mind and determined that the ruling actually isn’t so bad for the country in the long-term because it actually curbs federal power.

“If you asked me at the beginning of this process if I could have this ruling, would I take it, I’d have taken it,” Cuccinelli said in a Thursday afternoon phone interview.

The attorney general said he and his staff were gathered in their executive conference room early Thursday when they watched the news that the court largely upheld Obama’s health care law.

Cuccinelli’s first reaction was “negative,” he said, “based primarily on the fact that the law mostly stayed up.” He reacted Thursday morning by putting out a press release saying, “This is a dark day for American liberty.”

But his thoughts on the decision changed, the Republican said, as he dived into the ruling. “Once we got into the opinions, we got considerably more optimistic because our first motivation here is protection of the Constitution and restraint of the federal government. And that was very much achieved in this case.”

[…]

“One hundred years from now this will be looked on as a win,” he said.

Curiouser and curiouser.

MORE: Some diverse opinion on the Spectator Blog, but mostly anti-.

NRO Editors: Roberts’s Folly.

SCOTUS Obamacare Decision Unbound

Well, Liberty had a good run. If you look at the totality of history, 236 years is a pretty impressive stretch of individual freedom.

But, alas.

The Obamacare decision came down this morning. In the last few days my inkling was that the court would some how try and give both sides something, much as it did with the Arizona immigration ruling (don’t we all love “compromise?”). However, the more you read into this, it’s much more of a win for Obama and the statists.

Now, I’m no Constitutional scholar but I know more than most. The idea that the government could force people into commerce is not constitutional. A six-year old could glean that. However, what the Court has ruled is essentially the government can’t force you into commerce but it can punish you if you don’t engage in that commerce. So the government can say, “buy this salad and eat it” and you’re well within your rights to say “no way.” The government can then turn around and say, “that’s your prerogative, however because you won’t do this, you owe us $$.” So again, government can’t make you engage in commerce but can tax your ass off (to quote Walter Mondale) if you don’t. It’s like the proverbial “sin” tax, only backwards. Instead of being taxed for doing something harmful like smoking, you’re taxed for not doing something beneficial like eating your veggies.

Interesting side note. What happened with this decision is very similar to the court challenges to the New Deal. The politicians went all over the place saying “no way is this a tax,” while the lawyers for FDR told the courts, “this is totally a tax, big time.” Needless to say, the FDR packed court ruled in his favor more times than naught.

So where does this leave us? First, the Court doesn’t let the GOP and Romney off the hook. The law still has to be repealed, and if the court now indeed ruled the government can tax people not only on their income but on the behavior that’s a loophole that needs to be closed. The only way it can be closed is to elect a new, radical group of politicians. In other words, the Tea Party on steroids.

This movement will begin today. Whether it can gather the sheers numbers needed to make an impact is unknown, but it’s coming.

Now on to the inside baseball side of this. Chief Justice John Roberts: the new Souter? Maybe. I suspect he and George W. Bush’s names will be cursed aplenty today on the Right. Anthony Kennedy gets the last laugh as not only was he not the swing vote, he wanted to overturn the entire law. Shorter Kennedy: “I don’t want to go to your damn cocktail parties Ms. Quinn!” Justice Kennedy, my apologies.

How about a conspiracy theory just for fun? Roberts is actually more right-winged than anyone thought. Wrote this decision to light a fire under the Tea Party and get Romney elected. Eh, kinda weak, but fun to think about.

Actually surprised I’m not more depressed but I think I’ve been mentally preparing for this for awhile. I’ve been saying that the election this November will have a major impact on the decisions in my life. Do I play it safe or do I take chances. Obama wins, play it safe in every aspect of life. Romney wins, there may (repeat, may) be hope for something more. Or maybe it’s too late already.

Here we go…

Supreme Court Takes Up Obamacare

Just a friendly reminder…

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments this week on Obamacare. The Court will hand down their decision sometime this summer and we’ll finally be able to answer Ronald Reagan’s fateful challenge posed in 1964.

Perhaps equating Obamacare to the last step into a “thousand years of darkness” smacks of overbearing hyperbole, but let me tell you this: the decision the Supreme Court makes this summer will be a life changing one for me and many like me who will decide how to proceed with the remainder of their lives. If Obamacare does become constitutionally validated, it will open the floodgates for governmental actions that make Mike Bloomberg’s war on salt look like a pillow-fight.

Ed Morrissey makes the salient points:

This, I believe, will be the “big f******g deal” for the Supreme Court, and perhaps not just the Scalia wing, either.  The removal of this barrier on federal government intrusion makes the Constitution meaningless, and sets the precedent that any real or perceived health-care crisis would allow Congress to act.  Just wait until they start looking at obesity with these new powers.  We’re already seeing cities and states pass ridiculous laws about having no toys in Happy Meals and barring the use of certain fats in restaurant cooking.  When the federal government solidifies ObamaCare powers through an approving Supreme Court decision, get ready for the stepmother of all nanny states to arise.

And for Democrats who think this will be a great idea, just wait until Republicans control Washington and use those powers for their own perceptions of health-care crises.  For just one example, does porn promote violence towards women?  Well if enough people believe it does, that will be a public health issue, thanks to the comprehensive nature of ObamaCare and the unlimited authority it grants the federal government to regulate any kind of trade related to health care — and expect laws or regulations restricting or suppressing it.  The health-care gambit literally opens everything in American lives to the whim of federal bureaucrats and the governing class.  The end of limited government cuts any number of ways, and ObamaCare advocates are fooling themselves if they think they will forever control the levers of the leviathan they have launched.

Fool themselves they have, and will. The Heritage Foundation has a primer on the case and argues that either way it’s going to be bad for health care and best solution is a full legislative repeal. I agree, but I am extremely pessimistic of that ever happening as long as there are Washington, D.C. cocktail parties.

Which leads us to the most interesting man in the world…Justice Anthony Kennedy, who once played an unimportant role on the court…just to see what it felt like. He can speak fluent German legalese…in Russian. (Okay, you get the idea.) The hottest “swinger” in the Beltway will be showered with attention this week as the media tries to convince him how great he is and the lawyers make their arguments directly at him.

Stay thirsty, indeed.

What Justice Ginsburg Should Have Said

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg caused quite a still last week in the Blogosphere (since the MSM won’t touch the story) over remarks she made about the U.S. Constitution:

“I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” Ginsburg said in the interview, which aired on Jan. 30 on Al-Hayat TV.

The subject of the interview being Egypt. Now I would agree with Ginsburg if she had said the following:

“Do not look to the U.S. Constitution as a guide. The document is loaded with vague clauses that allow someone like me to sit on the high court and actually make law. Hell, I don’t have to follow the Constitution at all…I just decide what I would like it to say and judge accordingly. It’s actually a pretty sweet deal, but if you’re looking to set up a true democracy that isn’t ruled by a tiny elite, you should probably keep looking elsewhere. And even if you’re able to author such a document, people like me will find ways to render it meaningless within a few generations. So, you know, don’t knock yourselves out.”

Obama Decides To Play Hubris Card On Obamacare

Via Politico, the Obama Administration has decided not to ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing, thus hinting it may be ready to pass this hot-potato to SCOTUS:

The move puts the Supreme Court in the difficult position of having to decide whether to take the highly politically charged case in the middle of the presidential election.

Not for Anthony Kennedy…he’s in a position to get the best table at every restaurant in town.