WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Supreme Court's 5-4 decision upholding the nation's health care law
marks an enormous political victory for President Barack Obama in the
heat of a re-election campaign, and affirmation as well for the
Democrats' decades-long drive to extend coverage to millions of
Americans who now go without.
But if the sweeping changes mandated
by the law will go forward, so, too the political controversy.
Presidential challenger Mitt Romney and Republicans seeking control of
Congress will see to that, seizing already on Chief Justice John
Roberts' ruling that the law levies a new tax on anyone refusing to
purchase coverage.
The decision was rich in irony as well as in history.
It
was the second time in four days — a ruling Monday threw out much of an
Arizona state law on immigration — that a Roberts'-led majority upheld
the Obama administration's position on a noisy, contentious issue that
has roiled the nation's politics for years.
The chief justice came
into office in 2005 as the brightest star of a younger generation of
conservative legal experts, a man whose resume suggested he had been
virtually groomed for the high court. Adept politically, he disarmed his
critics when he told his confirmation hearing that a judge's role was
"to call balls and strikes and not to pitch and bat."
One who was
not persuaded at the time was then-Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning for
the support of liberals and other Democratic primary voters as he
pursued the party's presidential nomination. He pronounced Roberts
qualified for the high court, but then added that throughout the
nominee's legal career to date, "he has far more often used his
formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak."
On this case, at least, Roberts seemed to be ruling through gritted teeth.
"We
do not consider whether the (law) embodies sound policies," he wrote of
the health care legislation that Republicans have vowed to erase.
"That judgment is entrusted to the Nation's elected leaders."
That
was a reference to Obama and the lawmakers of both parties in Congress,
whose disagreement is so deep that nary a Republican voted for the
legislation when it slogged to passage in 2010. The polling then — as
now — makes the law out to be a political negative, and Obama
acknowledged as much in understated remarks at the White House.
"It
should be pretty clear by now that I didn't do this because it was good
politics," he said. "I did it because I believed it was good for the
country. I did it because I believed it was good for the American
people."
Republicans were anything but low-key.
They had
already made it clear they would seek to repeal any part of the law left
standing by the court, and Roberts' ruling seem to hand them another
talking point for the campaign to come.
The law raises taxes, cuts
Medicare and adds to the deficit," Romney said in remarks delivered
across the street from the Capitol. "Our mission is clear: If we want to
get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have to replace President Obama."
Even
so, for the first time since Obama signed the bill into law, the
president and advocates of the measure have the law and the Supreme
Court on their side, and a clearer path toward implementing the
legislation.
_______
EDITOR'S NOTE — David Espo is an AP Special Correspondent who covers politics and Congress.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.