In a busy day at the Supreme Court, the justices issued their first opinion of the day.  They ruled 6-3 in United States v. Alvarez that it is within a person’s First Amendment rights to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor, striking down the Stolen Valor Act as unconstitutional.  Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined conservative swing voter Anthony Kennedy and the court’s four liberal justices: Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  The dissenters were conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia.  Kennedy authored the opinion.

The second opinion of the day was the one everyone was waiting for: in a 5-4 decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the entire health care law officially known as the Affordable Care Act but often called Obamacare.  The individual mandate was held unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause but was upheld under the power to tax.  The shocker: swing voter Anthony Kennedy was in the dissent.  It was conservative Chief Justice John Roberts who not only voted with the four liberal justices but who wrote the opinion.