Was Roberts vote conservatism/neoliberalism blinking?

[yurbud]

The last time I can remember the right suffering a defeat like this was when Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, but that effort failed because Democrats in the Senate took a rare stand against the right and didn't budge.

What was extraordinary in this case was a CONSERVATIVE stopped the conservative steamroller, does that mean the right has realized the limits of how far they can push for corporatocracy/plutocracy before the people will rise up or was it something else?

7 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	YES, they blinked. The occupy movement, and polls showing support for health care reform made them realize they would lose more than they gained by overturning it.
	0 (0%)
	NO, the insurance companies gained from health care reform too, so it was really a decision between two pro-corporate views
	6 (86%)
	NO, Roberts followed his own judicial reasoning and conscience regardless of which businesses and political parties would be harmed or benefit
	1 (14%)
	OTHER (explain)
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[TeamPooka]

1. I voted Other because

I believe Roberts was trying to save the reputation and image of SCOTUS at the end of the day after reading Scalia's opinion.
So he switched.

[Proles]

8. This. He's a conservative judge, but as chief, didn't want to deligitimize the image of SCOTUS /nt

[TeamPooka]

9. exactly

[yurbud]

18. so it was a lesser blink

[SidDithers]

10. That's why I voted "Other" too...nt

Sid

[Johonny]

14. I voted other because Roberts is the right age to know that act is a conservative idea

He's a conservative. Why Kennedy voted against it is beyond me. I thought it would be 6-3 for because basically the court has 3 absolute garbage judges on it.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. I have no clue. Maybe Roberts is ill, we don't know it, and he's

developed a conscience.

[MrSlayer]

3. No, they never blink or quit or back down.

Once the dust settles we'll have to look for the poisonous seeds that were undoubtably planted in the decision.

[yurbud]

19. if they never blinked, Bush would have figured out a way to privatize SS without congressional

approval.

Any half-assed excuse he made for doing so would have been rubber stamped by the conservative Supreme Court and Congress even after Dems took over since conservative Dems vote with Republicans whenever corporate profits are on the chopping block (lest they cut off the supply to their own pockets).

[elleng]

4. No.

It was a practical decision by a Judge doing what Supremes are supposed to do, give great deference to the intention of the legislative branch when reasonably possible.

[xchrom]

5. He voted for a republican policy potentially limiting

Medicaid expansion.

He's a republican - for all that dems co-opted a republican, right wing win.

For all that they don't want to own it - and for all that dems don't want to do the right thing but the expedient thing.

[Fumesucker]

6. The five drew straws to see who was going to support the corporatists instead of the crazies..

Roberts lost the draw..

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. He set a dangerous precedent

that Justice Bader-Ginsberg absolutely destroyed in her dissent of his opinion on the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses.

Healthcare is 1/6 of our GDP - and he just re-overturned eons of overturned rulings by saying Congress can't address those issues.

For healthcare, yes, it is a major baby step in the right direction, but his opinion on WHY it is allowed is going to bite us in the ass. Mr Citizen's United knows what he is doing, and he didn't grow a conscience overnight.

Just watch.

[silvershadow]

11. i just shuddered...

If this is true (not saying I doubt you at all), then what? Being chief doesn't mean you can declare something out of bounds after the play...he's one of 9, and the chief, but he doesn't make the actual freaking rules for what has happened in the past. I'm confused I guess, I'll look into it more...nevertheless, it's vital Obama win in November because of the SCOTUS...it's where the clash of the ideologies (or what's left of them) will take place for the generations I suppose. They know it. Our side I think and hope does.

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. Here are a couple of articles about this

I forgot to bookmark the one I think did the best job.

Justice Bader-Ginsberg's dissent on this element was scathing. See also a thread here about her "stiletto into Fat Tony" (Search on those terms as the OP title should bring up the thread)

http://www.alternet.org/story/156091/why_justice_roberts_opinion_could_set_alarming_precedents?page=entire

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/us/conservatives-see-silver-lining-in-health-ruling.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

[Tom Ripley]

12. I see it more as conservatism and neoliberalism fluttering their eyelashes at one another

since they have been in bed together for a long time

[EFerrari]

15. LOL

[Marr]

16. Maybe he saw that, ultimately, this was an argument over a REPUBLICAN policy.

And that, were it struck down, the only other route would be Medicare for all. The demands for access to medical care certainly wouldn't disappear with the law, after all.

Roberts isn't an idiot, and he routinely uses his post to push a corporate political agenda. Whatever his motivation was in this particular decision, I think I'm safe in assuming he didn't just act on a devotion to legal principle.

[yurbud]

20. I agree that going the other way COULD have led to Medicare for all, but...

there's no guarantee Obama would push for that or that Congress would enact it or validate if it was done without them.

Given the level of corruption in Congress, there's no guarantee that the obviously, necessary, and best policy would actually be done.

[quaker bill]

17. It was an entirely conservative ruling

There is no change. It is essentially conservative for the court to uphold a law passed by congress and signed by the President, if there is any inherently constitutional rationale for doing so. This is the way the founders divided the powers.

There was nothing at odds with his "originalist" point of view in this decision. The decision was completely unspectacular, being unexpected does not equal spectacular. A vote to overturn would have been partisan activism. He did not go there. I was surprised only he busted this move, I expected at least Kennedy to join in as well. Perhaps once there were 5 votes to uphold, the rest took leave to raise a bit of political hell.

No one blinked, not even a bit.

[yurbud]

21. one of the few times I was more optimistic than general DU opinion

I suspected it was the beginning of the tide turning.

Maybe not.

[UTUSN]

22. It was ROBERTS & KENNEDY doing a tandem stranglehold on both decision writing sides

My own take is that he and KENNEDY made a deal:

That ROBERTS would take the heat off of KENNEDY as the #5 vote,

that KENNEDY would write a dissent that went ALL THE WAY further saying the WHOLE law was unconstitutional, and

that ROBERTS could take the main message away from the 4 Libs by writing the main decision with his own spin on top of the Libs’ versions.


That way, KENNEDY and ROBERTS, both of them together, had control over both sides of the written decisions.