Did Scalia Scare Off Roberts? - The Daily Beast
It is some technical, regarding the point about the dissent over reaching on severability, but if it is a valid analysis the case, then Roberts was acting under a rule of law understanding.
Any objective legal observer would tell you (and I'm trying to be one here) that the dissent's treatment of the severability issue is detached from 200 years of constitutional law.... It also includes a citation to a quote that Harry Reid gave to the New York Times in Janauary 2010 concerning the bill --- this from at least two justices (Scalia and Thomas) who routinely say that any use of legislative history is a sham .... In any event, rather than holding the mandate costitutional and those portions of the bill inextricably linked with it (guaranteed issue/community rating), four members of the Court were primed to throw the whole bill out. That level of judicial activism, in a context like this one, would be nearly unprecedented.I have a sneaking suspicion that Kennedy dissented because he would not be allowed to write the majority opinion in support. Getting the write the opinion seems to be his bribe.
Still, the below applies to me as well...
*See Car Talk -- which is probably as sensible an authority on this issue as I or Clarence Thomas are.
