April 2, 2012 10:02AM # Yes, Ms. Pelosi, We’ve Been Serious the Whole Time By [Ilya Shapiro](https://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro) --- SHARE The start of my [latest Obamacare op-ed](http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/02/in-opposing-obamacare-we-were-serious-the-whole-time/), hot off the pixels: > “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” With those words, Justice Anthony Kennedy sent the legal establishment reeling. > > > Was the Supreme Court really taking seriously the preposterous claims of the Tea Party-inspired hacks who were suing the federal government? Was there really a chance that five justices, acting as would-be partisan hacks themselves, would throw out President Obama’s signature achievement? Could Obamacare, [which name everyone is now allowed to use because the administration itself has adopted it](http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/03/media-now-allowed-to-say-obamacare-118494.html), really fall on some technicality about mandating economic activity rather than regulating it when it occurs? > > > In a word, yes. Read [the whole thing](http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/02/in-opposing-obamacare-we-were-serious-the-whole-time/) at CNN​.com. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).