That’s the gist of this L.A. Times front page article by David Savage, but the headline instead promises
Signs of Supreme Court activism worry Reagan administration lawyers.
It turns out that the only “Reagan Administration lawyers” they are able to quote are Charles Fried and Doug Kmiec, both of whom quite publicly endorsed candidate Obama in 2008. Kmiec, in fact, was rewarded with an ambassadorship for his service.
The article does note that Reagan appointee Laurence Silberman voted to uphold the mandate. But as an appellate judge Silberman is bound to interpret precedent as best he can. We don’t know from his ruling (a) what he would do if he were on the Supreme Court, where he could feel free to interpret precedent as he wished, or ignore it entirely; (b) what he would like the Supreme Court do do; much less (c) whether he’s “worried” about “signs of Supreme Court activism.”
So all the article tells us is that two prominent lawyers who endorsed Obama, both of whom by all indications think his health care law was a good idea (Fried authored an amicus brief supporting it, and calls it a “free market alternative”; note to Fried: you don’t need a 2,700 page bill, supplemented by thousands and thousands more pages of regulation, to establish a “free market”) want it to be upheld. That’s worth a front page article?