Welcome to Amicus, Slates Podcasts about the Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, Slates Supreme Court correspondent.

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.

Not so much of the Republican Democrat variety, but we're starting to witness the season

where there is a sudden blossoming of article speculating how the voting is going to go down

in the two key cases now pending at the court, the marriage equality cases, those are going

to be our U.D. 28th and the King vs. Burwell case, Obamacare 2.0, heard by the court last

March and talked about on this very show.

Now cast your mind back if you will, to 2012 when Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the

decision that saved the Affordable Care Act in the first Obamacare case and if I be versus

Sibelius.

Here's a little tape from him reading his opinion in that case.

The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain taxpayers pay the government for not

obtaining health insurance is in effect the tax on those without insurance.

Passing on the wisdom or fairness of such a tax is not our role because the Constitution

permits it, we must uphold it.

Now there was at least a little bit of evidence at the time suggesting that Roberts actually

switched his vote at the 11th hour in that case, casting a very reluctant vote with the

court's liberal wing to save Obamacare.

A good bit of the fretting and fussing about how the court is going to decide the new

challenge to Obamacare as well as the marriage cases turns on these questions about why

...