Supreme Dork

Yesterday, the Supreme Court again ruled in favor of Obamacare.  In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that 'Established by the State' does not necessarily mean 'Established by the State.'  You see, that could ruin the law as it is currently being executed.  Well, let's pause there.  If the law is badly or ambiguously written, shouldn't it be returned to the Legislature to correct it?  No, apparently not.  Instead, the majority of the Court ruled that the law as the Obama administration has chosen to implement it (which has been modified from the law that the Supreme Court upheld in 2012) is just fine.  Justice Scalia put it this way:

 

The Court’s decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘[a]ll legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution. Art. I, §1. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them. This Court holds only the judicial power—the power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we concoct. We must always remember, therefore, that ‘[o]ur task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.’

 

The majority assumed the role of legislature and made the law conform to how the Executive Branch implemented it, not how the Congress (badly) wrote it.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is Constitutional and must be allowed in all states, the democratic decisions of those states be damned. Chief Justice John Roberts, who yesterday was in favor of judicial legislation, wrote a strong dissent:

  

If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.

Thus the Roberts’ Judicial Doctrine is that ‘legislating is acceptable when I am in the majority but a horrible breach when I am in the minority.’ You can’t have it both ways. Either you rule on the law as written or you don’t. You can’t pick and choose.