Roberts One Person Pile-Up: The Chief Justice Prepares To Take The Bait and Then The Switch On The ACA JONATHAN TURLEY
Yesterday s oral argument before the Supreme Court was most notable in the collapsing of the false narrative used by many Democratic senators and media figures in the Barrett confirmation that the Affordable Care Act was close to being overturned in the case of California v. Texas. That conspiracy theory (that suggested that the rush to confirm Barrett was to supply the final needed vote) was shattered when both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh repeated their position in favor of severance a position that would guarantee the survival of the ACA. What was equally notable however was the slightly pathetic scene of Roberts effectively acknowledging that he might have been a chump in accepting the arguments on the individual mandate eight years ago in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). For years, Roberts has been on a collision course with himself and yesterday he had a one-person pileup.