The vagueness doctrine applies to criminal law, and in limited circumstances to some civil statutes that have penal effects. But there is no end of precedent holding that statutes are too ambiguous to be enforced, or that because of their vagueness they did not properly delegate power to an administrative agency. J.W. Hampton, for example (though it in fact upheld the challenged delegation.)
Just like Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence vs. Texas was used in the SCOTUS striking down of DOMA! Lol! I get the feeling after getting to know him a bit, Roberts doesn’t like Scalia
He’s written both major ACA rulings. Ruling that the individual mandate was a tax and therefore constitutional and ruling here that federal subsidies should apply to states with non-state run exchanges. He’s been the SCOTUS guardian angel of the ACA, which is likely something that no one would have ever expected when the bill was passed.
Yes, that worked so well in 2012.
Look at who the three dissenting justices were. Alito is at best a reactionary hardliner, Scalia has descended to the level of a national embarrassment, and Thomas – whose presence on the Supreme Court at all is nothing short of bizarre – should have been impeached long ago.
He’s the only one of the conservative Four Amigos with a working brain, and I suspect the long game is the legacy of John Roberts as a competent chief justice. One quote in his ruling seemed to transcend everything else and pretty much sum it all up:
“… we must respect the role of the Legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
I thought The New Yorker totally naoiled it:
Can anybody explain to me how these Plaintiff’s were harmed by the Federal subsidies, such that they had standing to sue?
The argument was that if there were no subsidies, the cost of the insurance would be more than 8% of their income, so they would be exempt from the mandate.
I’ve read in a few places, that this wasn’t actually true for these particular plaintiffs, but I don’t have any further details.
Incredibly, the claim for standing was based on the allegation that the subsidies would make health insurance affordable for them, so they would be subject to the mandate, whereas without the subsidy they wouldn’t be able to afford health insurance and thus could escape the mandate without penalty and not have any health insurance. 
Even more incredibly, it appears that the claims of all four plaintiffs in this ridiculous circus were bogus.
ETA: Ninja’d by BrightNShiny!
Not to mention that King had veteran’s insurance, and therefore was in no danger of losing health insurance and rather blithely stated that:
“the left will blow it out of proportion and claim that eight million people will lose their health insurance.” But he said lawyers had assured him that “things are in play to take care of the problem.”
The Court, and every lower court for that matter, had a golden opportunity to duck this POS suit on standing, and chose to get rid of it entirely instead.
Yeah…I think Roberts sees the larger picture here: The Dem’s were able to pass the Affordable Care Act because they had control of the Executive Branch and both houses of Congress, and once they lost this absolute control then in principle the law is not in immediate jeopardy because the Founding Father’s purposely made it difficult to change course just because you lose this absolute control (e.g., if they still control the Executive Branch, the President can veto a repeal or control of either house of Congress can prevent repeal).
If you now set the precedent that you can basically “shop” through any very complex law for any ambiguity and then use it to torpedo the law (because without such absolute control, the law can’t easily be amended to fix the ambiguity), then you are essentially changing this balance of power. He realizes that this is ultimately not a good thing.
That’s what annoyed me about King from the first. It is important to me that even laws I support overall be constitutional, but this was someone who wasn’t even hurt by the law trying to kill it because the president is a Democrat.
I don’t know that I buy that he cared that much
Figure we’ll hear any serious impeachment talk?
Now that you brought it up, I’m surprised there hasn’t been any…yet.
Your partisans were spoiled by the previous decision to let states opt out of the Medicare expansion.
From what I’m reading on the intertubes, it’s started in the fringes. I could imagine someone trying to primary a Republican over the issue of impeachment in a race here or there. It would amuse me greatly if we actually got Articles of Impeachment out of the current Congress, since there’s no downside for the Democrats and tons of upside for them. Twenty years ago, I’d have said it would never happen, but all bets are off with the current Republican Party.
Here are a couple of other quotes of Roberts using Scalia’s previous words in the majority opinion.
[Graphics from “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on MSNBC 06-25-15]
I expect we’ll get a lot of noise for a few days about how he ought to be impeached, including some noise from Congresscritters. But chance of actual Congressional hearings on the subject is absolutely zero, and by next week the wingnuts will have found some new chew toy to distract them.