Justice Roberts and Justice McReynolds
Justice McReynolds screams in anger as Chief Justice Hughes has a Constitutional Moment:
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937): Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the following dissenting opinion.
Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER, Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND, Mr. Justice BUTLER and I are unable to agree with the decisions just announced.
Considering the far-reaching import of these decisions, the departure from what we understand has been consistently ruled here, and the extraordinary power confirmed to a Board of three, the obligation to present our views becomes plain.
The Court as we think departs from well-established principles followed in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (May, 1935), and Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (May, 1936). Every consideration brought forward to uphold the act before us was applicable to support the acts held unconstitutional in causes decided within two years. And the lower courts rightly deemed them controlling…
When you get a lawless Supreme Court decision, it is usually a Constitutional Moment--a belief by the justices that justice and the future of America requires that the law must change, a la Warren in Brown and Hughes in Jones and Laughlin--or alternatively a raw assertion of partisan advantage, as in Rehnquist in Bush v. Gore.
Yet Roberts in NFIB vs. Sibelius is neither making a Constitutional Moment nor asserting partisan advantage--the assembled Republican governors of America have gone absolutely apesh%t over Roberts's decision because it forces them to either (a) endorse ObamaCare by working to expand Medicaid, or (b) see the finances of their states' hospitals collapse.
So what is it, if it is neither a High Political Constitutional Moment or a naked assertion of partisan advantage?
