What a contrast: One week we have two full days of a seminar on the U. S. Constitution in the form of arguments before the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act that should have been a rare teaching moment for anyone who followed the audio; this was followed by an incredible pronouncement and challenge to the justices from a former constitutional law professor now serving as President on the invalidity of their role in judicial review of legislation! I think some of his former students might want a refund; meanwhile, he might want to consider a remedial course that includes not only Marbury v. Madison, but Federalist 78 by Hamilton which made it clear even before the Constitution was ratified that “the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority”. A very timely idea, since it has already far exceeded that authority.
To say that the decision on the ObamaCare case will be huge is the mother of all understatements, and I am convinced that the Obama regime will use the decision, if negative for him as I expect, as a platform to launch an all hands attack on the Court as a tool of the right that is obstructing the public interest, much as Franklin Roosevelt did in 1936-7, when the Court blocked his key New Deal legislation. On the other hand, if the law survives and Obama is reelected, look for the most aggressive attack on constitutional freedoms since the Progressive Era in the early 20th century.