The state of Georgia's chief advocate in the Supreme Court health-care challenge says Chief Justice John Roberts pulled off "a 'political' result."
Mercer law professor and constitutional expert David Oedel helped represent the state of Georgia during the Supreme Court case and was in the court room at the time of the ruling.
In a live interview on 13WMAZ Eyewitness News at 6, he said he was "amazed" at the 5-to-4 vote that upheld President Obama's health-care law.
He said he believed that the states that challenged President Obama's health-care law had made their case.
He believed they had successfully argued that the law violated both the Spending and Commerce clauses of the Constitution.
He said, "Chief Justice Roberts kind of pulled a variety of rabbits out of his hat to pull this case together in a way that allowed a political result."
In 2010, Gov. Sonny Perdue asked Oedel to represent the state in challenging the health-care law.
Oedel was at the Supreme Court in March, when justices questioned advocates on both sides. Then he returned to D.C. to hear Thursday's announcement.
Overall, he called the outcome "a mixed bag." The states won one round, he said, because justices limited how the federal government could force states to expand Medicaid.
Legal issues aside, Oedel argued that the health-care law doesn't address the most important issue: "How are we going to contain costs in our medical service-delivery system? And those problems are really not answered by this system, and they really need to be answered."
But he said the ruling sets up a clear choice for voters this fall: "It's up to the people to decide how they want to pursue this."