WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts had initially voted to strike down the Obama health-care law — but in a last-minute switch, he sided with liberal members of the Supreme Court, according to a new report.
Roberts had agreed with the conservative judges after oral arguments in March, contending that the mandate to require Americans to have health care or face a financial penalty could not be justified under the government’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
But while debating how much of the Affordable Care Act to strike down during deliberations, Roberts joined the four liberal judges, and became the swing vote allowing the ruling that the law was constitutional, according to the CBS report.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who observers had thought might come down on either side, was, in fact, the one who tried hardest to sway Roberts to get back with the conservatives, the agency said.
“He was relentless,” one source said of Kennedy’s efforts. “He was very engaged in this.”
When Roberts held firm, saying that the law can be upheld under Congress’ taxing powers, the conservatives refused to back anything in the chief justice’s opinion they agreed with, telling him, in effect, “You’re on your own.”
The unusual, unsigned joint dissent showed that the conservatives weren’t even willing to debate with Roberts, the network said.
President Obama got a bump in voter support for his health-care law after last week’s Supreme Court ruling, particularly from independent voters critical to the November election, according to a new poll.
Support for the law jumped to 48 percent, up from the 43 percent measured before the court decision, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released yesterday. Among independents, backing for the law spiked by 11 points, to 38 percent, the poll said. That still left 62 percent of independents opposing it. The poll continued to show the matter is extremely polarizing. Eight out of 10 Republicans surveyed oppose the law, while three in four Democrats support it.
Republicans will continue to try to repeal the measure, despite the hurdles of a Democrat-controlled Senate and Obama in the White House, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday. “While the court upheld it as constitutional, they certainly didn’t say it was a good law,” Boehner told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“It has to be ripped out, and we need to start over one step at a time.”