The day America actually worked
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The day America actually worked
When America woke up Thursday morning knowing that the Supreme Court would deliver its long-awaited ruling on President Obama’s health care plan, it’s fair to say it was a house divided -- between those who felt the law is Big-Government-run-amok and those who saw expanded health coverage as a hallmark of a great society.
It’s also true that citizens were united on one thing: Everyone expected the worst from our government.
Why wouldn’t they? From last summer’s debt crisis to unending high unemployment to the never-closing travesty of Guantanamo Bay, America’s so-called leaders seem to know only two speeds: Fear-gripped gridlock, or the slow grind of short-sighted, good-for-my-side-but-bad-for-America partisan politics.
And no one expected much from a Supreme Court once viewed as largely – if not always – above the Washington’s muck but now held in equally low esteem, thanks largely to its realpolitik rulings in the 2000 presidential race and its unlimited-corporate-cash-in-campaigns Citizens United decision in 2010.
That’s exactly what made yesterday’s 5-4 ruling to uphold the health care plan – and the day’s unlikely hero, Chief Justice John Roberts -- so stunning (ask the producers at CNN and Fox who initially got it wrong) but, more importantly, so refreshing.
Sure, the details of what the Supremes OK’d yesterday, especially the hoped-for expansion of health care benefits to as many as 30 million Americans who don’t have it now, matter – they matter a lot. But what’s truly notable about Roberts’ action in siding with the court’s liberal wing – the first time he’d done so in a 5-4 ruling since joining the court in 2005 – is his seeming broader message.
Which was that at least once -- for this one day, anyway, on this one life-or-death matter – America needed to figure out how it could still do something really big, and stop figuring out why it couldn’t.
In his majority opinion, Roberts wrote: “We possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
With those last 16, simple yet surprising words, Roberts went a long way – though not all the way – toward wiping the political blemish that has existed on the High Court since it handed the presidency to George W. Bush a dozen years ago. Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the Supreme Court, a recent historical low, and it’s hard not to imagine that its Chief Justice didn’t have the plunging image of the court weighing on his mind.
“Roberts peered into the abyss of a world in which he and his colleagues are little more than Senators with lifetime appointments, and he recoiled,” wrote the pundit Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. “The long-term war over the shape of the state goes on, but the crisis of legitimacy has been averted.”
“He acted as a true judicial conservative,” said Pace University political scientist Christopher Malone in an interview -- meaning not in the modern sense of pursuing a right-wing, talk-radio-driven agenda, but in the old fashioned sense of interpreting the law and not making policy.
In a strange way, Roberts almost seemed to be celebrating this month’s 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, another dark time, when the High Court showed up to say no president is above the law -- when the system actually worked for one day, dammit.
Roberts is no liberal icon -- today’s action can’t undo his past worship of corporate personhood, and his ruling Thursday on the role of the Constitution’s commerce clause set the stage for new legal warfare. It also meant that key future decisions on making sure that health care actually works will have to be made by our elected officials, hopefully acting in the public interest -- the way that John Roberts acted on June 28, 2012.
That rarest of days when America actually worked. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
(Photo by Stephen Crowley/New York Times)
I wish I had your optimism, Will.
You could be right.
Then again, Roberts could have just done a rope-a-dope move. Gets to set precedent on the commerce clause, and sets it up for the Repubs to campaign on Obama's "health insurance tax" (never mind that it costs us anyway if we have to pay for the provision of coverage for uninsured, that healthcare will be more expensive without some of the provisions in the bill, etc.).
— Talking point sleuth- It is also possible Roberts was getting tired of serving injustice when his name starts with "Justice" Roberts.
Not all Republicans are heartless and lack moral character.— Seed - Roberts is saying "Hey, the people voted for these clowns, and you have to accept the consequences of your votes. If you want Obamacare gone, do it at the ballot box."
People were angry with George Bush so, without much thought, voted for a guy purely on the promise of "change". Elections have consequences, and we're going to have to learn the hard way. Roberts is making us "take our medicine" in more ways than one.— jmc - Now Barry gets to run on the largest tax levy that has ever been put on any populace in the history of human civilization. Oh, and he also gets to explain why he lied about it "absolutely not being a tax" while at the same time instructing his lawyers to argue that it was a tax. The farther away we get from the days of the late soviet union, the less repelled we are by its dead ends. Truly sad for our nation.— hotelguy
- Largest tax levy? No. Politifact itself calls that incorrect statement "pants on fire"
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jun/28/rush-limbaugh/health-care-law-not-largest-tax-increase-us-histor/— PHJR2010 - PHJR, your nievete is really breathtaking... The article you site is using the old CBO numbers... The true costs keep rolling in and adjusted upwards every year. Try this article: http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-obamacare-price-tag-shifts-940-billion-1-163500655.html. Price tag is now $1,720,000,000,000 over 10 years (not the 940 billion) and still climbing as people bother to read the bill. We can not afford it. — chris_r
- hotelguy: Ask Romney how much it costs MA to administer Romneycare. It's not much and it is far away from largest tax.
Again, ask Romney how much Romney/Obamacare cost.....— Seed - I agree with TPS in that Roberts knew there was nothing unconstitutional the individual mandate and that it would be covered via the commerce clause. He threw conservatives a bone by framing it as a tax believing it will damage his re election. That maybe true, but he is running against Romney - Mr. Mandate!— chasing history
- Will, as some pundits have theorized, it was up to the Chief Justice to salvage the Court's legitimacy against what would've otherwise been perceived as another purely partisan vote a la Bush v Gore. The survival of the Court depended on it. It has no power of the purse, no executive power to enforce its decisions. It's legitimacy relies solely on a social compact made by Justice John Marshall in Marbury v Madison in its earliest days. In effect, trust us, because there's nobody else to turn to as the impartial referee. The Court must sometimes compromise in the face of political realities, to live another day.— montani semper liberi
- Somehow, shedding the shackles of partisanship is never demanded of the liberals on the court. Why couldn't a liberal step up save the court's legitimacy against the perception of partisanship? Can anyone even imagine Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor, or Ginsburg striking down the mandate? I did't think so. — jmc
- Let's see, the conservatives hold a 5-4 majority and are the most conservative court since the 1930's. That might have something to do with it.
- "Refreshing" translated: A republican voted the way I wanted. The day Ginsberg, Sotomayor or Kagen vote on a divided issue with the conservatives is the day I'll drop dead.— bannedrepublican
- This comment has been deleted.— RufusG
- Middle class Americans are already paying for the free loaders with inflated hospital bills.
May be it is time for 1% to make some sacrifice and provide some relief for middle class.— Seed - The top 1% already pay for 80% of everything, what more do you want? — chris_r
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