The NYT has an article today on Chief Justice Roberts and the upcoming oral arguments surrounding the Affordable Care Act, specifically, the individual mandate.

There’s going to be a lot of information out there in the next few weeks discussing the case.  There’s going to be a lot of rhetoric on both sides that will not serve to clarify the debate:  it will serve to clutter the public’s mind.  

Let me bold something, here, to emphasize the perspective I’m coming from:  CURRENT CONSTITUTIONAL DOCTRINE CLEARLY SHOWS THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE IS A CONSTITUTIONAL EXERCISE OF CONGRESS’S POWERS.

By this, I mean to say that there is little doubt that it IF the Supreme Court is going to hold the Act unconstitutional, it WILL have to modify the current interpretative regime.  I do not believe that this is my opinion:  I believe this is legal fact.

I emphasize this because many persons on both sides of the aisle will label the Supreme Court “activist” regardless of how the issue pans out.  For anyone out there reading this, I would suggest to you that such labels are meaningless, and I’d urge you to study the issue carefully before you make up your mind.

Expect more posts on the issue, with hopefully more detailed legal explanations of the case.