[d-ray657]

The Affordable Health Care Act case: The Dean was not surprised by the decision, but maybe by the author. He noted that the Court has consistently upheld social welfare statutes under the Congressional taxing power. He also noted that, although five justices were of the opinion that the Commerce Clause did not permit regulation of the decision not to engage in commerce, he did not see that as a legal precedent, because the ultimate decision was to uphold the statute.

He was also of the opinion that this term has transformed the court from the Kennedy Court to the Roberts Court, because on other opinions this term, Roberts had joined with the “liberal” bloc of the Court. He rejected the suggestion that Roberts was motivated by anything other than his interpretation of the law in reaching his decision. There was also a hint that the Scalia decision, which was joined by the other dissenting justices, was originally written as a majority opinion, but that the majority changed during deliberation over the result.

Finally, the Dean has an interesting prediction on the upcoming term. He expects both the Ninth Circuit decision on gay marriage and the Third Circuit’s decision on the DOMA to make it to the Court next term. He expects that Justice Kennedy will write the majority decision in both cases, upholding the right to gay marriage. The reason for his prediction is that Justice Kennedy would rather his legacy be that he was the author of the modern version of Brown v. Board of Education than Plessey v. Ferguson.

There were a few more interesting thoughts, but I don’t want to bore you guys too much.

Regards,

D-Ray