Wednesday, November 27, 2013

THE SUPREME COURT FOLLOWS THE ELECTION RETURNS, AND SOMETIMES VICE VERSA

I'm not convinced that the Obama administration is going to lose, or lose completely, when the Supreme Court deals with the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

A decision is expected in June 2014, a few months before the midterms. I continue to think that John Roberts is as much a Republican operative as he is a jurist. If he's the swing vote, as he was on the main Obamacare ruling before the 2012 election, will he anticipate that a pro-right-wing 5-4 ruling will drive Democratic turnout at the polls? He'll probably be mindful of how important the votes of women and unmarried voters were to Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor's race; he'll also be thinking about Albuquerque's rejection of a 20-week abortion ban. So he may not want a ruling that gives corporations, or at least publicly held ones, religious rights heretofore reserved to individuals. This may change if he gets buy-in from one of the Democratic appointees, but I'm guessing he won't.

I think he'd rather have his own side's voters angry at the Court and ready to express their wrath at the polls. He tried that in 2012; it didn't work, but midterm elections are much more likely to be won by the side tht turns out its base. I'm predicting he won't give his side the big win, because he's fighting a long war.

5 comments:

Knight of Nothing said...

Do you really think that he was fighting a long war with his decision on ACA? I think at least in that case, he simply blinked and decided that he didn't want his legacy to read that he and his court blew up the Constitution by accepting some wacko libertarian's interpretation of it.

Steve M. said...

I think he's a good soldier for the Cause. I think he cares less about how history will view him than most people believe. Just my opinion.

SW1 said...

I think Robert's ruling on the medicaid expansion will be more damaging than people think. I also think that Roberts blows up the contraceptive mandate. Not sure about Scalia though.

Knight of Nothing said...

I suppose it's self-serving to believe that he blinked when there's not a great deal of evidence to support that position. Either way, he is as you say a good soldier and you're probably right that election strategy plays some role in his decisions.

Frank Wilhoit said...

The contraceptive mandate is not about the status of corporations and it is not about sex. It is about faith-based nullification, pure, simple, and sweeping. If it is struck down, that will codify the "deeply-held-beliefs exemption", to every law, for all in-group actors. It will destroy the last shredded fig-leaf of the rule of law.