Visits: 2
Chief Justice John Roberts traded with liberal justices over the fate of a key plank in President Barack Obama’s signature health-care legislation while the matter was before the Supreme Court in 2012, according to an adaptation published on Tuesday of a forthcoming Roberts biography.
Kaiser Family Foundation.
The deliberation of the justices is generally a private matter and little is known about how the top court comes to its final decisions.
Roberts has painted the process as apolitical, however, and famously pledged during his nomination hearings to serve as an impartial “umpire” whose job it was to “call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”
He has faced intense scrutiny from conservatives for his vote to preserve Obamacare. President Donald Trump, then a private citizen, wrote a post on Twitter at the time blasting Roberts for his vote.
“Wow, the Supreme Court passed ObamaCare,” Trump wrote. “I guess Justice Roberts wanted to be a part of Georgetown society more than anyone knew.”
None of the justices responded to a request for comment submitted through a Supreme Court spokesperson.