◼ Liberals fear the Court may respect its limits. - Charles C. W. Cooke/National Review Online
...(S)ince last week’s oral arguments, the real speculation has been about how “conservative” Justice Roberts and “independent” Justice Kennedy will vote, while there has been no conjecture whatsoever about the likely opinions of the court’s four “liberals” — Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg — all of whom are widely predicted to side with the administration. Clearly, if any group within the court deserves to be described as “doctrinaire,” it’s this quartet. No such depiction has come forth.
Indeed, for 70 years now, the Court has shown an untold deference to Congress, and, on economic matters at least, allowed progressives to realize almost every desire that they could get past the people. If the federal government has finally pushed it too far with Obamacare — which it may well have done — it will be the Court’s limiting federal power that will be anomalous; a rare check on the insatiable power of the state instead of business as usual. E. J. Dionne might well consider that, in response to this trend, conservatives have moved “further to the right” than ever, but that is a separate debate; for it is not the Republicans’ political platform, but the never-ending expansion of government, that has put the Department of Health and Human Services in court. And if judicial skepticism toward a federal government that can find no limiting principle to its power represents a “coup d’état,” then one has to ask what the Constitution is for....
