"It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, making pretty clear what he thinks about Obamacare even as he supplied the crucial fifth vote to uphold it.
So Roberts gets big points for intellectual honesty, and the health care decision will not join the surprisingly short list of Supreme Court rulings during our lifetime that liberals love to hate.
It has been 39 years since Roe vs. Wade, the high-water mark of liberal activism, and 43 years -- 28 of them with a Republican president choosing the justices -- since Warren Burger replaced Earl Warren as chief justice and the counterrevolution was supposed to start. One way or another, the major Warren Court rulings have dodged bullet after bullet.
Actually, there are only two cases in the past half-century that are notorious, from a liberal point of view: Bush vs. Gore, which upheld the theft of the 2000 presidential election, and Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, just two and a half years ago, which declared that corporations have a right of free speech under the First Amendment.
Bush vs. Gore is indefensible. Citizens United is not. In fact, it was correctly decided, however deplorable the consequences. Liberals ought to show the chief justice that we, too, can acknowledge a principle even when we don't agree with the result.
Citizens United overturned provisions of a law once known as McCain-Feingold, after its main sponsors. The law was "an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions" (as Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion explained) on advocating the election or defeat of a candidate, or issuing any other "electioneering communication," within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary.
As applied to an individual, such a law would be obviously unconstitutional. Endorsement of a political candidate -- even if that candidate is yourself -- is about as central to the First Amendment as any category of speech can be. The government may restrict campaign contributions if it wishes (as it does), because a contribution isn't speech and will not necessarily be spent on speech. Money spent promoting yourself or others for public office is speech, and can't be censored.
Wait a moment, goes the response by every liberal newspaper and website in the nation. Speech by a corporation is different. Corporations are artificial entities, designed and built by the government. They have no more rights than Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Human beings may decide to organize themselves as a corporation, but even real people don't have a constitutional right to exercise their constitutional rights in corporate form.
