During today's arguments on Obamacare before the United State Supreme Court, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said the following (Source: Real Clear Politics):
JUSTICE KENNEDY: But the reason, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don't have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that's generally the rule.
And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.
Kennedy is considered a conservative justice, but on occasion a "swing vote."
Besides that, he's also a member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus. Legend has it that he sponsored the guy who sponsored me into the Order.
If the Court splits along conservative/liberal lines (5-4), in their Obamacare decision it would be interesting (and amusing) that the swing vote may be from a Clamper.
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