CBS News is

reporting that Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican
appointee who sided with the Supreme Court’s liberal voting block
in voting to uphold President Obama’s health care law, switched his
vote after initially coming down against the law’s individual
mandate:

Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme
Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of
President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act,
but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals
to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with
specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring
him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically,
Justice Anthony Kennedy – believed by many conservatives to be the
justice most likely to defect and vote for the law – led the effort
to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

“He was relentless,” one source said of Kennedy’s efforts. “He
was very engaged in this.”

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives
handed him their own message which, as one justice put it,
essentially translated into, “You’re on your own.”

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion,
including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis
imposing limits on Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause, the
sources said.

Why did Roberts switch? The article says that no one knows for
sure, but speculates that pressure from liberal editorialists and
others who warned that the high court’s reputation would be ruined
if it struck down the law might have made Roberts reverse his
initial position:

Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas,
deliberately avoid news articles on the Court when issues are
pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New
York Times). They’ve explained that they don’t want to be
influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that
are perceived as liberal.

But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice,
he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the Court, and he also
is sensitive to how the Court is perceived by the public.

There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to
the Court – and to Roberts’ reputation – if the Court were to
strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the
President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be
upheld.

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it
would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings,
when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the
conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, “wobbly,”
the sources said.

It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and
decided to uphold the law. At least one conservative justice tried
to get him to explain it, but was unsatisfied with the response,
according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.

At the legal blog the Volokh Conspiracy, Stewart Baker
notes that Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, gave an unusual and “weirdly
belated” speech urging Roberts to vote in favor of the law—weird
because the initial votes on the case had already been cast. Those
types of speeches, Baker notes, are usually a bad idea, or at least
a gamble, because of the possibility that they will backfire. So
why did the senior Democrat on the Senate’s judicial committee make
such an unusual gamble right around the time that Roberts is now
said to have “gone wobbly” and changed his vote? Were there leaks
from within about Roberts’ wariness that went only to one side of
the aisle?

The existence of the CBS story, which reporter Jan Crawford says
is sourced to two court insiders (possibly even current
justices), is amazing enough on its own. But if the story and
its speculation about the reasons behind Roberts’ switch are true,
then the implications are downright shocking: Essentially, it would
mean that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was bullied into
changing his position, and the ultimate outcome, on perhaps the
most consequential Supreme Court case in the last several decades,
because prominent Democrats and liberals threatened to throw a
temper tantrum if he didn’t vote the way they wanted.