Balancing policies

I don’t follow day-to-day politics with much zest. But some are speculating that John Roberts’ tortured ruling in favor of ObamaCare may pave the way for overturning the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action. If true, what do people think about such a trade? I do wonder if the supreme court invalidating affirmative action would have any real effect on the marketplace; “diversity programs” seem to be spliced into the DNA of the modern corporation at this point. That being said, there is some suggestion that Roberts may be willing to close the era which began with Great Society whereby the white majority offers special dispensations to the black minority in light of its history of discrimination.

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5 Responses to Balancing policies

  1. Dwight E. Howell says:

    After thinking about this for several minutes I’d have to say that the only thing suggested to me by David Hume’s post is that he is delusional and may be suffering from dementia.

    It is extremely unlikely you could get any Supreme Court Justice to vote the way he just suggested.

  2. David Hume says:

    are you serious? it’s widely reported in the press.

  3. Ron Strong says:

    I think you may be correct that, for political reasons, Roberts wanted to diminish the image of the Court as being “too” political. Not following the “right wing agenda” here slightly insulates the Court from political attack when it takes a position despised by progressive on other matters, such as affirmative action.

    If this is Robert’s (internal) rationale, I have no problems with it. The end of affirmative action cannot come soon enough.

    Another posibility that has been largely overlooked relates to the impact of striking down the individual mandate without invalidating the entire law.

    Most of the lower courts that struck down the mandate found the rest of the law severable and thus enforceable. What is bizarre is that few comented on what a disaster it would be for conservatives if the individual mandate were struck down while the rest of the law remained in place.

    Private insurers would still be forced to take on those who applied for insurance just as they discovered an expensive pre-existing condition. Taken to an extreme by millions gaming the system, private insurance could become untenable, necessitatiing a single payer system – i.e., the government run system desired by the hard left wing.

    I only heard one person comment on this – Howard Dean on CNBC shortly before the ruling. Perhaps Roberts saw this problem as well.

  4. John says:

    I’d be willing to make the trade, but I doubt Roberts is doing this. Why is it that people only talk about deferring the the legislature when it violates economic rights? Hardly anybody thinks that the court should stand idle if Congress passed a law that banned newspapers. But economic freedom? Nah. He should have done the right thing and struck down Obamacare and reversed the court’s rulings on affirmative action.

    Roberts needs to recite this phrase 20 times each night before he goes to bed: “enumerated powers”.

  5. Polichinello says:

    All of this rationalization is so much decorating the proverbial pig with lipstick. Roberts ruling was nothing more than a conclusion looking for a reason. If this longer term goal was what Roberts was after, don’t you think he’d have been able to convince Scalia, Alito and even Thomas? I doubt the pundits are seeing something that those guys missed.

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