Sen.Orrin Hatch of Utah partially defended Chief Justice’s opinion in upholding the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act, explaining that Roberts’ opinion at its core expressed a conservative viewpoint, leaving the option to repeal the law still on the table at a speech at conservative think tank AEI Monday.
Hatch explained, “at the same time that Chief Justice Roberts has gained a strange new respect from the left for his decision, he has now come under fire from conservatives. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I agreed with his decision; I didn’t. But I will give him this, his opinion shows a deep respect for the character of Republican government and the responsibility of citizens.”
Quoting Roberts’ decision Hatch read, “In conclusion he wrote, ‘the framers created a federal government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today, but the Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.’ Well, the Chief Justice is absolutely correct.”
[audio:http://trns.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/20120709HatchRoberts.mp3]
