'IMPEACH JUSTICE ROBERTS,' wrote a commenter at Hot Air. Blog chatter: Impeach Roberts

Furious conservative activists lashed out Thursday in the blogosphere at Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for siding with the left and upholding the individual mandate in “Obamacare,” with some even calling for his impeachment.

“It [the Affordable Care Act] will be dead on November 6th and then impeachment proceedings will conclude on January 20th against Justice Roberts,” wrote a commenter on the conservative blog Powerline.


“IMPEACH JUSTICE ROBERTS,” wrote a commenter at Hot Air.

“And Roberts? Really? I expect this of Kennedy but him? Yet another stealth socialist/statist as other contributors have pointed out,” added a commenter at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

“I still can’t believe it. We’d have the entire law thrown out, if Roberts hadn’t been more concerned with winning favor from the chattering class,” added another commenter on a different thread at Hot Air.

Twitter was ablaze with conservatives calling for the chief justice’s impeachment.

“Justice Roberts is a TRAITOR. Along with all the damn LIBERALS on court. IMPEACH IMPEACH IMPEACH #SCOTUS,” said @jensan1332.

“Looks like I’m not alone on this,” wrote @tahDeetz, retweeting a note from @CnservativePunk, which read, “I am in a vengeful mood the next move Impeach John Roberts.”

“Impeach Roberts NOW and the rest of the #SCOTUS for upholding #Obamacare as a tax, still is un-Constitutional to force entry into markets!!!” wrote @ denvercdavis.

“Let your cry be damn obama and impeach roberts!!”added @DrTEMorganSr.

Conservatives weren’t alone — influential progressive blogger Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, tweeted Thursday, “Dear Conservatives, I feel your pain. I’d be happy to join you in efforts to impeach Justice Roberts.”

The impeachment of a Supreme Court justice takes the same process as impeaching a president. The House of Representatives would impeach a justice, and the Senate would hold a trial on whether to convict and remove the official from office. Officials can only be removed from office after impeachment and conviction of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” according to the Constitution.

Chatter of impeachment had begun before the Supreme Court ruling Thursday. But Roberts ruling was not expected — University of Houston Law Prof. David R. Dow had written in an April article in The Daily Beast that Supreme Court justices should be impeached if they overturned the Affordable Care Act, which wasn’t what happened.

Conservative bloggers themselves were a bit less aggressive, and in fact seemed to be in shock.

“Wow. Chief Justice Roberts saved Obamacare, plain and simple. Very few people envisioned that scenario,” wrote Guy Benson at Townhall.com.

“Oh, no,” wrote Ace of Spades, a conservative blogger. “Roberts joined the liberals… Roberts’ vote saved the ACA — so I guess 5-4 decisions are okay again.”

Conservative bloggers had earlier suspected that Justice Anthony Kennedy would be the swing vote against their position, telling POLITICO at a conservative bloggers conference that they feared he would be instrumental in upholding the individual mandate. Instead, it was Roberts.

“You read that correctly. Justice Kennedy would have invalidated the entire law. Chief Justice Roberts saved it,” said Daniel Foster at National Review Online.

“The always unpredictable Kennedy came through; the newly unpredictable Roberts did not,” said Paul Mirengoff at the Powerline blog.

RedState’s Erick Erickson reasoned that Roberts wanted to stay above the fray.

“John Roberts’ opinion seems to clearly suggest he wants to keep the Supreme Court out of political fights and was willing to destroy his reputation with conservatives to do it,” he wrote on his blog.