Judging the Judges.

[John Sauer]

     In light of Obama's treatment of the Supreme Court Of The United States at the 2010 State Of The Union message, I find it hard to believe Justice Roberts is biased toward the Democrats and Obamacare. I think SCOTUS, in their two rulings this week, are holding the Democrats feet to the fire.

     In the Arizona case, by dropping the 3 issues that mirror the Federal Government's responsibility and allowing the issue of state’s verification of citizenship, they keep the current legislated superstructure in place, keep the spotlight on the Justice Department's refusal to perform its constitutional duty and force the voters of this country to perform their constitutional duty by educating themselves on the issues and voting for the candidates that espouse the views that the voters hold dear.

     The same applies to the ruling on Obamacare. H.R. 3200 was presented to our elected representatives and us voters with the title America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 with a heart of the single payer mandate to power the legislation and would not add to the taxpayers’ burdens. The legislators were given 3 days to review the 2700 pages of the legislation before they were expected to approve it. They approved it because they were told they “have to enact the bill before they can find out what is in it” and later admitted they did not read the bill. I must admit it has a cavalier sounding title, what can go wrong?

     When the constitutionality of Obamacare was argued to the SCOTUS the single payer mandate was presented as a tax and the Federal Government has the constitutional authority to enact a tax on the citizens. The SCOTUS agrees with that definition and highlighted the fact that the single payer aspect of the bill is a tax. The five judges ruled in favor of Obamacare as constructionists. I don’t like the outcome either. It makes me mad enough to go out and vote for something.

     The conservative talk show hosts and bloggers are lambasting SCOTUS for not being conservative activists in these two rulings. This progressive government is attributed with creating a nanny state by using activist liberal judges to back up their progressive legislation. Either activism creates a nanny state. Attempting to lay blame on the Supreme Court for supporting bad legislation deflects the audience’s attention from the real problem which is uneducated voters. The voters are shirking their constitutional responsibility by voting without having backgrounds on the candidates they are selecting.

     So where does the fault lay; with judge that interprets the law as it was constructed, with the politician that buys a pig-in-a-poke or votes for legislation because it has a cavalier sounding name, or the voter that re-elects that politician and expects different results from him the next time?

     Do your research or find research sources you can trust.

[Patricia M. McBride]

Thank you for a very good assessment!  I agree it is the voters responsibility to get those who pass bad legislation out of office as Justice Roberts stated after the ruling was handed down.  It is not his job to rule bad legislation as unconstitutional.  And they didn't really call it a tax.  They did keep calling it a penalty (and slipped up and called it a tax a couple of times).  Obama does not want this called a tax and has used great care even since the ruling not to call it that ergo, we must make sure we use the word tax as often as we can and always when we refer to Obamacare!!!