Bricker, I’ve thought about this question for a while. From your posts you seem very conservative, and very knowledgeable about the law and those are definite pluses. You do have the disadvantage of announcing your positions in advance, such as how you would have sided with Roberts in his opinion on the ACA. With that, I’m hard pressed to say I would want to appoint someone who disagrees with me on such a fundamental issue. SCOTUS must keep the federal government in check.
Another thing that bothers me is that you talk about how you disagree with Wickard v. Filburn, yet you wouldn’t overrule it. I can’t understand that position. A 70 year old Supreme Court decision wasn’t written by God to Moses on stone tablets. If it was wrong then its wrong now and should be overturned. We did it with Plessy and with Lochner.
That being said, I think that your question answered my question. A GOP President would certainly appoint you to the Court, and you would disappoint (at least on this issue). I guess this is the Right Wing Burden. People like you have respect for precedent and respect for the law and won’t just march in lock step with an agenda like the liberal 4 do. For example, Breyer has made it clear that nothing exceeds federal commerce clause powers. Absolutely nothing. And Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor vote right along with him. That type of thinking is abhorrent to the idea of limited federal power and state sovereignty.
I think that the problem is that we need people on the right, like Scalia and Thomas, who will counter that. Until the left realizes that there are limits to federal power and are radical, then we need to be radical. I wish we had nine justices like you or even liberal versions of you who could concede that just because they like/don’t like a certain policy, it is irrelevant to the federal power behind the policy.
If I were President, I would work on you for a while and nominate you. 