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"Inside the Obamacare Ruling: How Roberts Got A Majority," by Daniel Fisher, Forbes
"The cobbled-together nature of the decision doesn’t diminish its sheer legal cleverness, bordering on brilliance. By upholding the law, Roberts sheltered the court from liberal criticism. At the same time he asserted at least two powerful holdings that pushed the authority of the court further than it had ever gone before. That makes Roberts the heir to the one of the first Chief Justices, John Marshall, who protected the infant court from being strangled in its crib in the early years of this country while also establishing its power to invalidate acts of Congress."
"Don't Cheer John Roberts," by Paul Campos, Salon
"Roberts has this extraordinary degree of power because our political process remains committed to an absurd system of judicial review, in which someone like Roberts gets to “interpret” an unavoidably ambiguous 220-year-old document, written at a time and place that had less in common with America in 2012 than it did with England in 1500. Under such interpretive conditions, it’s inevitable that 'the Constitution' ends up meaning pretty much what John Roberts thinks it ought to mean.
"This is not because Roberts is some sort of rogue judge. To the contrary, as the eminent judge and legal theorist Richard Posner put it earlier this week, if we remain committed to our present system of decision making, 'there isn’t any sensible alternative' to the make-it-up-as-you-go-along style of constitutional interpretation, 'given how old and out of touch the document is, how unrecoverable the actual thinking of its authors and ratifiers, and how vaguely worded so much of it is.'"
"What Would President Romney Do?" by Matthew Yglesias, Slate
"In other words, once the basic framework of the law is in place, it’ll be all but impossible to kill. That’s probably why no country that’s instituted a universal health insurance program has ever rolled it back—even strong conservatives like Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom or the current right-wing government in Canada leave existing programs in place. The problem for Democrats is that if Romney takes office in 2013, none of this stuff will have actually happened yet."
"Repeal is A Fantasy," by David Frum, Daily Beast
"Republicans will find the task of writing their 'replace' law even more agonizing than the Democrats found original passage. The party has no internal consensus on what a replacement would look like. Worse, any replacement of the law's popular elements will require financing. But where is that money to come from? New taxes are unacceptable. The proceeds of 'closing loopholes' are already spoken for—that's how President Romney has promised to finance his promise to cut the top rate of tax 28%..."
Do you think this decision was a Trojan Horse for Federalism? Weigh in with your comments below.
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