Newsfront
Obamacare Ruling Raises Stakes for November
Appalled by the high court’s ruling, conservatives are eyeing the election for sea change.
T BY DAVID A. PATTEN
he political wildfire that swept the GOP to major- ity status in the House in 2010 was reignited by Chief
Justice John Roberts’ decision to side with the liberals on the Supreme Court and uphold Obamacare. Without the presumed safety net of
a conservative court to deep-six bills like the Aff ordable Care Act, constitu- tionalists quickly focused on the need to win back control of the Senate and the White House. Then Congress can get to work
repealing Obama’s signature legisla- tion, and the new Republican presi- dent might be able to appoint more conservative justices to the court. At the conservative grass-roots FreedomWorks organiza- tion, the phones rang off the hook for days after the court’s 5–4 decision. “The outrage is palpable,” FreedomWorks chief Matt Kibbe tells Newsmax. “While we can declare a long-term victory for the Constitution and the Commerce Clause, it is now in the hands of the people to make the 2012 election a mandate on full repeal of the Obam- acare power grab.” Kibbe calls the outcome “the same
sold to the people by the executive, but it was when argued before the courts.” But, Kibbe predicts, this time the result would be diff erent. “The diff erence today is that we the people know exactly what the Obama administra- tion did,” he says, “and we know who needs to be fi red.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after
the Supreme Court’s decision showed less than half of registered voters support Obamacare — 48 percent — and most — 53 percent — would be more likely to vote for a member of
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS
ties in both the House and Senate in November in order to eff ect a repeal. Conservative activists say the
“It’s time to double down on spreading the message that President Obama’s individual mandate is an unprecedented infringement on constitutional liberty.” — FreedomWorks chief Matt Kibbe
bait and switch employed by FDR to slip Social Security past the people and the court. It was not a tax when
8 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2012
Congress who would favor repeal. House Speaker John Boehner called the ruling shocking and wants Obam- acare to be “ripped up by its roots,” he stated on CBS’ Face the Nation. He and other Republicans said they would redouble their eff orts to win majori-
best approach to stopping creative judicial interpretations of the Con- stitution is to get more conservative justices. “I think we just need more than the fi ve,” said Curt A. Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice. Levey said one of the
enduring lessons from the Obamacare verdict is that when liberal jurists vote their politics, they are applauded for their savvy jurisprudence by the media. But when con- servatives vote based on their heartfelt principles, they’re
lambasted for politicizing the law. For conservatives, that makes win-
ning in November absolutely critical. Already, President Obama has appoint- ed two liberal jurists to the bench. Cur- rently, 79-year-old liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is still active despite
P.6,7: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES / ROMNEY,ROBERTS/AP IMAGES
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