now? tonight, both sides debate it out. plus, patrick kennedy. health care was his father s legacy. and rick santorum, he s not happy at all. also, last night, about john edwards. i don t think he was in his right mind when he did that. he was temporarily insane. is rielle herself thinking straight? this is piers morgan tonight. good evening. a big day for president obama. he states his presidency on health care. today, the supreme court upheld his signature legislation. the president acknowledged as much when he spoke shortly after the ruling came down. i know the debate over this law has been divisive. i respect the very real concerns that millions of americans have shared. so, what will today s health care decision mean in the election? joining me now, massachusetts governor duval patrick. welcome, governor. it s an interesting day, isn t it? it s obviously a very big it s a good day, piers. right, it s a good day. could it backfire in the longer term the
secretly, he thinks if future case comes up he can slap the government down, he felt would not be to easy if he okayed the commerce power here. no one expected the shift from tax power to commerce power. it s kind of ingenious and what enabled roberts to go with the liberals. here i have a principle that is going to limit the federal government. bret: rewrote the majority. in that, he linked the tax issue, as you are talking about. he also wrote, 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. some conservatives are looking at that saying well, this is his way to say it s all about the election. i think so. did have an eye on the election, but robert was intent not having it break down on the traditional partisan 5-4 lines.
created this ability to get around it the for the tress of the commerce clause. if you take the tax road, you can go around it and achieve the same ends. that is not going to be what a lot of federalism wanted. they view this case as sort of the alamo for states rights, the court has been bleeding federalism for many decades and they wanted a very strong opinion. they play is gotten it on the commerce clause but the court may have also affirmed that you can avoid the commerce clause entirely by basing something on the tax power. so, let s also talk, chris matthews, about what this means for the republicans and the suggestion has been that if this happened and i certainly didn t talk to any republicans in congress over the last month or so who thought that this would be the way the ruling would come down, but there certainly was a lot of thought that if this was upheld, as it has been, thatç e republicans would use it as a rallying cry, that this would
you canç see that this is a subtle decision, would you say tom? it s subtle in its legal reasoning but i think it s pretty firm in its consequence. obviously a huge number of words in the opinion that are still being digested. but our pretty confident impression, the admin station got what it wanted, had a backup theory for upholding the individual mandate. first, it was under congress s power, they lost that 5-4 the backup theory and got the one vote they really needed in chief justice john roberts to uphold the man day, the statute that congress enacted under the tax power. you are no more suited than anyone else to answer but i will ask you anyway, why do you think the chief justice did this? i think he believe happened i don t think this is power politics in any way, although people will want to read it that way. i think john roberts decided what he says in his opinion is my job as a justice of the supreme court is to make read
based on the commerce clause of the constitution. but it was upheld based on the tax writing provisions of the u.s. congress, and the executive branch of the u.s. government. a 5-4 decision. the key decision by the chief justice of the united states, john roberts. he sided with the other, the democratic appointed members of the supreme court, breyer, ginsberg, kagan, sotomayor, together with chief justice john roberts, they were in the majority. kennedy, scalia, alito and thomas, they were in the minority. the health care reform law stays in full fully remains the law of the land in the united states. kate baldwin has been watching all of this unfold. kate, you re outside the supreme court. give us some more on what was going on inside the supreme court. reporter: what was going on inside the supreme court is the chief justice, he announced the ruling and began reading part, a summary, really, of the opinion, the majority of opinion of the court. and that has been happeni