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| Authored by: IANALitj on Friday, June 29 2012 @ 11:51 AM EDT |
I don't think that you appreciate the subtlety of the Chief Justice's argument.
It does hinge on whether the challenged mandate is a tax or not. But in law, as
in the English language generally, the same word can mean different things in
different contexts. In this respect, the law and the English language tend to
differ from computer programs.
There are two analyses, for two contexts.
In the context of the Supreme Court's compliance with a congressional statute
(not the constitutional provision) whether the mandate is a tax within the
meaning of that statute depends on the use of the word "tax" in that
statute. The Chief Justice concluded that the challenged mandate was carefully
crafted not to be a "tax" as the word is used in that congressional
statute. You can read his reasoning in detail, and obviously not everyone will
agree.
In the context of the constitutional analysis (not the analysis of compliance
with the congressional statute) the question was whether the mandate is a tax as
that word is used in the United States Constitution (as it has been interpreted
over the years). This involved a wider-ranging historical analysis than for the
more recent congressional statute. The Chief Justice concluded that the
challenged mandate was a "tax" in the constitutional sense. You can
read his reasoning in detail, and again not everyone will agree.
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