In light of the blizzard of recent federal court injunctions issued by federal judges nationwide to thwart President Trump’s efforts to restore measures of sanity to the federal government, I’m taken back to 2012.  The occasion was Chief Justice John Roberts’s deciding vote upholding Obamacare.

From a (UK) Guardian piece at the time:

Roberts, 57, framed his affirmation of the healthcare law Thursday in part as a rejection of pressure for the highest court in the land to get involved in politics. In his decision he wrote of ‘a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the nation’s elected leaders.’

‘It is not our job,’ Roberts wrote, ‘to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.’

It is a fine sentiment, if somewhat coy about the influence of the court, and the implications of the decision as Roberts crafted it.

In March, the Obama administration argued that the individual mandate fitted within federal powers to intervene in markets as established by the constitution’s commerce clause. The argument addressed criticism from the right that the federal government cannot dictate what people should buy or sell, whether the product in question is insurance or broccoli.

In the finest tradition of high court side-stepping, Roberts breezily dismissed the government’s finely crafted legal work and came pounding down with what he asserted was the real matter at hand: the government’s power to tax.

Roberts took up the healthcare law provision that fines citizens who fail to obtain healthcare. The fine is a tax, he wrote: ‘In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.’

Roberts had struck down the argument and upheld the law.

To say Roberts sometimes appears to perform backwards cartwheels through flaming hoops to thread the needle to achieve a desired political end, as astutely demonstrated in this case, may be understatement.

Nevertheless, with many of these cases headed to the Supreme Court, I can only hope Chief Justice Roberts retains the same “general reticence to invalidate the acts of the nation’s elected leaders” sentiment he espoused here.

Image: Public domain.