Friday, June 29, 2012

Did Chief Justice Roberts just hand a Mickey Finn to Obama and the Democrats on the commerce clause?

Commentary, by Rick Did Chief Justice John Roberts hand the most important victory to the right?
It is what Roberts has been pursuing ever since he signed up with the Federalist Society. In 2005, Sen. Barack Obama spoke in opposition to Roberts' nomination, saying he did not trust his political philosophy on tough questions such as "whether the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce." Today, Roberts did what Obama predicted he would do. Source: SLATE.
I believe Roberts’s decision will throw roadblocks in Obama’s efforts to fully implement the ‘Affordable Health Care Act.’ I also believe he knew exactly what he was doing. In the future, it will be much more difficult for congress to pass any legislation which tends to ‘force’ its citizenry to either ‘do’ or ‘not do’ anything they do not want to do, under the umbrella that it is ‘principally under the commerce clause.’ It will also make it possible for congress, especially the right, to repeal or weaken existing laws, activist judge’s decisions, and executive orders passed under the ‘commerce clause’ reasoning. I expect the conservatives to now actively seek these laws and to repeal or gut them. In addition, now until election day, the Republicans have more taxes to blame Obama for, as Roberts has declared that the ‘penalty’ for not buying health care, has now turned into another ‘tax,’ i.e., the Midas touch in reverse for Obama’s re-election. Think about it. Robert’s decisions make a lot of sense.

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