Profile in Courage? The Chief Justice

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

Profile in Courage?

The Honorable John Roberts, Chief Justice of The United States Supreme Court, garnered some unwanted publicity with his recent decision to uphold what many refer to as “Obamacare.” 

While it is true he was only one of five votes cast to uphold the law, no one debates that it was his vote that was unexpected and that without it, the decision would have struck down some or all of the President’s signature health care initiative.

Probably no one was as surprised as President Obama himself that the man a Republican president (George W. Bush) chose to elevate to the Chief Justice position on the court provided the one vote needed to save the Democrat president’s (Barack Obama) most cherished accomplishment.

The outrage expressed by many Republicans, especially those in the more conservative ranks, was loud and damning. They saw Roberts' action as one of ingratitude to the man who appointed him, alarming to the conservatives in the land who saw his appointment as providing hope that their interpretation of the Constitution would prevail in future years, and as traitorous to his fellow jurists who were then cast in the minority on this important issue.

Personally, I am not a fan of the government requiring any citizen to buy anything. So I guess that would put me with the minority of the Court on this matter. I am not unsympathetic to those who believe our country must find a way to provide healthcare to all. I just fall into a category of people who believe the law just upheld could be better crafted and who would have liked to see it returned to the Congress for more in-depth work.

I am cutting the Chief Justice some slack on this one.

He is a learned man with a considerable record. He is one of the youngest Chief Justices, and he holds a lifetime appointment. He had to understand that the position he carved out on this issue, in a presidential election year, would be mighty unpopular with a lot of people.

It is fair, I think, to assume that he made a very difficult decision based on his own understanding of the law, and he did so knowing many in our society would view it with outrage. If this assumption is correct, the Chief Justice is another “Profile in Courage” for making an unpopular judgment because he believed it to be the correct decision.

Because of this decision, the president will probably be stronger in the coming election campaign, his conservative colleagues will never again see him in the same way, liberals will be watching to see if he can be counted on for a “swing” vote on other occasions, and Americans who would have made a different judgment will watch the entire matter unfold while awaiting history’s judgment on this 5-4 decision.

Critics of the court need to remember there are reasons the Justices have lifetime appointments. Perhaps the most important reason is to remove them from a need to be popular and to encourage them to do what they think is right.

Justices continually surprise their appointers.

Dwight Eisenhower is reported to have concluded that appointing Earl Warren as Chief Justice was his worst decision. Richard Nixon wasn’t too happy with Justice Blackman. Bush Senior watched his appointment of David Souter boomerang on the conservatives, and the list goes on.

Bottom line: no matter what the party of the President doing the appointing, or the political affiliation of the person nominated, the appointee has to become his own man (or woman) for the system to work.

In any “close call,” and a 5-4 decision of “The Supremes” is certainly that, a legal matter is not necessarily closed to further discussion.

This one will be no different.

If the President prevails in the next election the people will have four years of experience with “Obamacare” before the subsequent election. If the President does not prevail in the next election, the Republican will have an opportunity to tweak this health care mandate.

In the meantime, there are winners and losers, happy people and sad, and “Obamacare” is the settled law of the land.