Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold “Obamacare” not only because he believed the law’s individual mandate is constitutional under Congress’ taxing powers, but because, as the head of the court, he understood the political ramifications of striking it down, legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin said in remarks Sunday at The New Yorker Festival.“John Roberts is not an associate justice, he’s a chief justice. And he takes that role very seriously. He is the institutional voice of the Supreme Court. He is the custodian of the court’s public reputation. Roberts understood the political peril that would come by making the ‘Obamacare’ case the third in a trilogy, with Bush v. Gore in 2000, Citizens United in 2010 and ‘Obamacare’ in 2012,” said Toobin, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a senior legal analyst at CNN.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=94844