As I keep saying, there are different kinds<\/em> of conservatism.\u00a0 Michael Gerson makes that point in his discussion of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts\u2019 ruling on Obamacare:<\/p>\n His health-care ruling did expose a division between two varieties of judicial conservatism \u2014 institutionalism and constitutionalism \u2014 that can lead to very different outcomes.<\/p>\n Roberts has emerged as the great institutionalist, concerned primarily about the place of the Supreme Court in American political life. In this view, the court maintains its power by exercising it sparingly \u2014 deferring whenever possible to the legislative branch. Institutionalism embodies a temperamental conservatism \u2014 a commitment to continuity, humility and prudence.<\/p>\n The main constitutionalists on the court are Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, focused on the rigorous application of the words of the founding document. In this view, the meaning of the text is primary, whatever the political consequences of applying it. Constitutionalism is often accompanied by an understandable complaint: If the conservative response following every period of liberal activism is humility and continuity, then the ideological ratchet turns only leftward.<\/p>\n But judges are also not hired as political philosophers, Burkean or otherwise. Their legitimacy comes from a credible application of the law. And the outcome of the health care case came down to one point of law: Roberts\u2019s interpretation of the statute as a constitutional tax rather than an unconstitutional mandate. In his ruling, Roberts admits this view is hardly the most obvious one: \u201cThe question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a \u2018fairly possible\u2019 one.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is that Roberts\u2019s interpretation is not fairly, or even remotely, possible. If the law had been written in the Roberts version \u2014 as a regressive federal tax on the uninsured \u2014 there is no chance it would have passed Congress. More to the point, the law that Roberts describes would have covered a different number of the uninsured. Academic studies indicate that people respond differently to tax penalties than they do the legal mandates. \u201cWhen the imperative to buy insurance,\u201d notes Yuval Levin, \u201cis instead presented as a choice between two options, more people will likely choose the cheaper option (which, for almost everyone, will be paying the tax rather than buying the coverage).\u201d<\/p>\n Why did Roberts not account for this policy distinction? The most natural interpretation is that he didn\u2019t know anything about it. Which is precisely the point. Roberts is not a health policy expert. His clever reinterpretation of the health law would actually change its outcome. This is not an alternate reading but an alternate universe.<\/p>\n Even in a short time, Roberts\u2019s decision has not worn well. What initially seemed wise now smacks of mere cleverness \u2014 less a judge\u2019s prudence than a lawyer\u2019s trick. To find the health-care law constitutional, Roberts reimagined it. It was outcome-based jurisprudence, even if the intended outcome was institutional harmony. It was an act of judicial arrogance, even in the cause of judicial deference. And it raises deeper concerns. Unmoored from a reasonable interpretation of the law, institutionalism easily becomes the creed of the philosopher-king \u2014 hovering above the balance of powers, tinkering benevolently here and there, instead of living within the constraints of the system.<\/p>\n