Politics

CNN: Chief Justice Roberts Chuckled When Scalia Dubbed Health Care Law “SCOTUScare” [VIDEO]

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Heather Hunter Contributor
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CNN’s Politics Senior Reporter Stephen Collinson recounted the reaction of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to Justice Antonin Scalia’s fiery health care ruling dissent.

“He [Roberts] said ‘Justice Scalia has a dissent’ and Justice Scalia said ‘indeed.’  The whole court starts laughing and he starts into this evisceration of the John Roberts’ opinion in this case while sitting right next to Roberts, who has kind of watched it stone faced the whole way through.  It wasn’t until he got to the end and Scalia said ‘we should call Obamacare ‘SCOTUScare’ and then everyone kind of relaxed a little bit and smiled. Even the Chief Justice had a little chuckle,” Collinson told his fellow colleague on the steps of the Supreme Court.

The CNN reporter’s account described an exchange only seen by witnesses who were in the courtroom because of the court’s rule about no cameras.

Collinson called Scalia “a very eloquent dissenter.”

“Many occasions he’s had a dissent which is full of rich vocabulary. He was making a point very viscerally that the court had rewritten the law of congress and it wasn’t the court’s job to do so,” the reporter recounted. “He said ‘this is a major moment in American history.'”

Scalia reportedly told the court that the ruling “will set astounding precedents and it will kind of echo through the years, confusing lawyers for years to come.”