Secret Vote Opens Health Law Review Shaping Court Legacy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/secret-vote-opens-health-law-review-shaping-court-legacy.html

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts will probably ask each of his eight Supreme Court colleagues gathered in an oak-paneled room tomorrow where they stand on the law that would expand health insurance to at least 30 million Americans and affect one-sixth of the economy.

The secret, preliminary vote, following the court’s standard practice, will kick off three months of behind-the- scenes deliberations on the fate of the law. The outcome will shape Roberts’s own legacy, influence President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects and potentially deepen the partisan gulf that is already dividing the country.

“This is the defining case for this term and quite possibly the entire Roberts chief justiceship if they’re going to strike it down,” said Sanford Levinson, a University of Texas law professor.

Almost six and a half hours of argument over the past three days cast doubt on the survival of the law’s centerpiece requirement that individuals get insurance. The hearings made clear the justices are splitting along ideological lines, much like a Democratic-controlled Congress was when it enacted the law in 2010 without a single Republican vote.