Bernadette Meyler, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, comments on the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act.
She says: “The Supreme Court’s decision today on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have pronounced political effects, especially in light of the upcoming presidential election. Its legal significance for future cases, however, may be less radical. The opinion Chief Justice Roberts penned for the Court continues a trend begun during the era of the Rehnquist Court. This trend entails rejecting justifications for congressional statutes under what are perceived as more coercive constitutional provisions, like the Commerce Clause or the civil rights enforcement provision of Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, and instead permitting Congress to act through making it financially costly for states or individuals to take certain paths under either the Spending Clause or the taxing power. “Even though the majority upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act under Congress’s taxing power and definitively rejected a Commerce Clause justification, its decision may not significantly narrow Congress’s ability to enact legislation under the Commerce Clause. Indeed, Justice Roberts only distinguished — rather than rejecting — the Commerce Clause cases that are taken to represent the high water marks of Congress’s powers, asserting that none of them involve compelling individuals into unwanted activity. Although Justice Ginsburg, dissenting in this matter, disagreed, the number of examples of congressional compulsion of individual action she provided remains small. Hence, eliminating that power - if it did, in fact, previously exist - should have little impact on what Congress can do in future.”
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