NP - Philadelphia Daily News Editortial

[David Morris]

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12459913-how-far-the-four-dissenters-were-willing-to-go?lite

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality
of the Affordable Care Act. But as the political, legal, and policy
world scrutinizes the details of today's ruling, it's worth pausing to
appreciate just how far the four dissenters -- who filed their dissent
jointly -- were willing to go.

The conventional wisdom, which was neither conventional nor wise, was
that the individual mandate was in deep trouble, but it was
unrealistic to think the justices would be so radical as to kill every
letter of every word of every page of the law. Such a breathtaking
move would simply be unnecessarily radical.

And yet, as of this morning, four justices -- Alito, Kennedy, Scalia,
and Thomas -- insisted on doing exactly that. The four dissenters
demanded that the Supreme Court effectively throw out the entirety of
the law -- the mandate, the consumer protections, the tax cuts, the
subsidies, the benefits, everything.

To reach this conclusion, these four not only had to reject a century
of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, they also had ignore the Necessary
and Proper clause, and Congress' taxation power. I can't read Chief
Justice John Roberts' mind, but it wouldn't surprise me if the
extremism of the four dissenters effectively forced him to break ranks
-- had Kennedy been willing to strike down the mandate while leaving
the rest of the law intact, this may well have been a 5-4 ruling the
other way.

Roberts' motivations notwithstanding, it's important that Americans
understand that there are now four justices on the Supreme Court who
effectively want to overturn the 20th century. Based on the flimsiest
of arguments, the four dissenters want to kill progressive legislation
basically because their political ideologies tell them to do so.

There are some who argue that this year's presidential election isn't
especially important. I hope those who believe this consider what
today's court minority was prepared to do, and what they will do with
just one more vote.


On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 9:36 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> And in my humble opinion for the right reason.  The federal government should have the power, meaning the tax power, to establish universal health coverage, regardless of how clumsily.