More Tea Leaves: Conservatives All Inclined To Kill the Mandate?

Via Hot Air, SCOTUSblog finds that the questions continue to be tougher for ObamaCare's supporters.

Based on the questions posed to Paul Clement, the lead attorney for the state challengers to the individual mandate, it appears that the mandate is in trouble. It is not clear whether it will be struck down, but the questions that the conservative Justices posed to Clement were not nearly as pressing as the ones they asked to Solicitor General Verrilli....

Perhaps the most interesting point to emerge so far is that Justice Kennedy’s questions suggest that he believes that the mandate has profound implications for individual liberty: he asked multiple times whether the mandate fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and individuals, so that it must surpass a special burden.

Well Kennedy did have all that Liberty, Sweet Liberty dicta in the Texas Sodomy case, so maybe he's leaning that way.

The blogger finds that Alito and Roberts are less committed than the "conservatives" (I assume this is Scalia, Thomas, and, oddly, Kennedy). He holds out hope for either Alito or Roberts joining the liberals to uphold ObamaCare.

posted by Ace at 12:42 PM

| Access Comments