Supreme Court upholds Obamacare

In a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the majority, the Court held that the individual mandate is sustainable as a valid exercise of Congress's taxing power.Short article at USA Today online. I'm sure more in depth analysis will follow.{AbE}Full opinion here.Edited by subbie, : As noted

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado at Bolder, makes a strong argument that Chief Justice Roberts was going to declare Obamacare unconstitutional but switched positions at, or after, the 11th hour.I definitely agree with his point that the dissent reads more like a majority opinion than a dissent. It's also quite curious that the dissent refers to Justice Ginsberg's concurrence as a dissent.Intriguing.

And now, Professor Campos claims a source told him that Justice Roberts actually wrote most of the dissent, as well as the majority opinion. Professor Campos points to two particularly unusual aspects of the dissent. One, it's a joint dissent, as opposed to one authored by one particular Justice then joined by others. Two, it doesn't mention the majority opinion in the first 46 pages, (and never even mentions that it's a dissent in the first 13,000 words) then mentions the majority opinion repeatedly in the last 19 pages.In the abstract, I'd be quite skeptical of any anonymous leaks from the Supreme Court. It is probably the most leak proof institution in all of government. However, there was undoubtedly something very unusual happening during the drafting process. If the oddities described above are not unprecedented, they are extraordinary in the extreme. And, they are consistent with the claim that Justice Roberts wrote most of the dissent intending it to be a majority opinion, then changed his mind.Curiouser and curiouser.