The Politics of Law
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In anticipation of big decisions on marriage equality and Obamacare, many are talking about the balance of political power on the Supreme Court. Dahlia Lithwick speaks with two court watchers about the extent to which the Justices are political actors.Please let us know what you think of Amicus, our legal affairs podcast. Our email is amicus@slate.com.Subscribe to our podcast here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/slates-amicus-dahlia-lithwick/id928790786?mt=2#Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at [http://slate.me/1ENza1a].
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Amicus Slate's podcast about the Supreme Court. |
| 0:08.1 | I'm Dahlia Lithwick-Slate Supreme Court correspondent. |
| 0:12.3 | As oral arguments approach next week in the big, big marriage equality cases, every good Supreme Court reporter's mind turns to, well, raw politics. |
| 0:22.5 | Not so much of the Republican Democrat variety, but we're starting to witness the season |
| 0:28.2 | where there is a sudden blossoming of articles speculating how the voting is going to go down |
| 0:33.5 | in the two key cases now pending at the court, the marriage equality cases, those are going to be argued April 28th, |
| 0:39.3 | and the King v. Burwell case, Obamacare 2.0, heard by the court last March and talked about on this very show. |
| 0:47.4 | Now, cast your mind back, if you will, to 2012 when Chief Justice, John Roberts, wrote the decision that saved the Affordable Care Act |
| 0:55.6 | in the first Obamacare case, NFIB versus Sebelius. Here's little tape from him reading his |
| 1:01.2 | opinion in that case. The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain taxpayers pay the government |
| 1:07.4 | for not obtaining health insurance is in effect a tax on those without insurance. |
| 1:13.5 | Passing on the wisdom or fairness of such a tax is not our role because the Constitution |
| 1:18.5 | permits it, we must uphold it. Now there was at least a little bit of evidence at the time |
| 1:24.3 | suggesting that Roberts actually switched his vote at the 11th hour in that case, |
| 1:29.2 | casting a very reluctant vote with the court's liberal wing to save Obamacare. |
| 1:34.0 | A good bit of the fretting and fussing about how the court is going to decide the new challenge to |
| 1:38.8 | Obamacare, as well as the marriage cases, turns on these questions about why Robert switched |
| 1:43.7 | his vote, whether |
| 1:44.8 | it tells us anything about how he's going to vote this spring, and, well, to put it very bluntly, |
| 1:49.7 | whether all of this just comes down to politics. On today's episode of Amicus, we're going to |
| 1:55.4 | bravely jump right into this fray and see if we can't tease out a little bit more about the motivations |
| 2:00.2 | of the Chief Justice and some of his colleagues on the court. We have two veteran court watchers |
... |
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