Report: Roberts switched views on health care law (Atlantic)

July 02, 2012 at 06:02 AM
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Chief Justice John Roberts not only changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the health care reform law, but also tried to persuade Justice Anthony Kennedy and other conservative judges to join his decision, CBS News reported, "according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations." Kennedy, thought by many conservatives to be the most likely to switch and uphold the law, was "relentless" in trying to bring Roberts back to the conservative side, CBS' sources said. Instead of establishing a more united Court—said to be Roberts' prerogative for recruiting Kennedy—the four conservative justices joined forces to write an unsigned joint dissent even on sections of the law with which they all agreed on, according to CBS' sources.