Like almost everyone across the political spectrum I was shocked that John Roberts was the decisive vote in favor of the Obama health care bill. I assumed it was most likely to be defeated unless there was some political rationale behind one of the conservatives' change of heart. but I thought, like most, the occasional defector, Kennedy, would be the man most apt to desert the conservative majority.
I never believed the decision would be made on legal grounds, i.e. motivated by precedent as the Obama administration seemed to naively believe and many liberal legal scholars hoped. The justices have all been vetted for their political reliability by the nominating president before any other consideration such as age, gender, race or ethnicity came into play--apart from their having some significant legal background.
Now that Roberts has acted, however, how can we understand his decision?
A number of commentators have offered possible motives. Some have speculated that Roberts was worried about the public image of the Court, which polls had increasingly indicated was viewed as a politically-motivated institution rather than some apolitical arbiter of constituionality. Others felt he may have been concerned about the practical consequences for health care institutions, specifically hospitals and insurance companies, if they had to cope with the rejection of just the individual mandate.
All of this may be true, but i think a better explanation is that the bill was one that conservatives, politicians and think-tanks, always wanted up until recently as an alternative to a more thorough government takeover of health care, i.e. Medicare for all or something approaching it.
It wasn't Roberts' fault that the pragmatic business conservatives in the Republican party were overthrown by even more right-wing ones and that a policy that carved out a huge space for the private sector was now seen as socialistic, if not Communism.
So, maybe Roberts just felt that in the long term something dramatic had to be done about our health care system and, as he wasn't running for office and didn't have to oppose even a conservative policy (as today's Republicans have to trash cap and trade and a host of other once-Republican ideas), he might as well kill a few birds with one stone: vet a basically Republican health care plan, make himself look like an independant Justice who would be praised by those who write the history books, and reduce the perception that the Court was too political.
If this is true then the speculation that Roberts is "evolving" or might desert the "team" again, especially since his fomer allies have pilloried him within and outside the Court, is wishful thinking.
There was no necessary "conservative" reason to trash the bill, unless one was an extreme libertarian, which Roberts is not. On the key cases coming up, the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action I expect he will vote with his usual allies. On the question of homosexual marriage he might go either way depending on whether his conservatism runs to social issues or mainly support of the corporate class both in their economic concerns and political ones...Citizens United.