Law Commons^™

No Small Feat: Who Won The Health Care Case (And Why Did So Many Law Professors Miss The Boat)?, Randy E. Barnett

Florida Law Review

In this Essay, prepared as the basis for the 2013 Dunwody Distinguished Lecture in Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, I describe five aspects of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that are sometimes overlooked or misunderstood: (1) the Court held that imposing economic mandates on the people was unconstitutional under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses; (2) Chief Justice John Roberts’s reasoning was the holding in the case, whether viewed from a formalist or a realist perspective; (3) the Court did not uphold the constitutionality of …