What if that huge conservative doctrinal achievement was mere dicta?

I have expressed my frustration with those who see some salvation in the supposed advancement of constitutional federalism in the ruling by Chief Justice Roberts and the four conservative dissenters that the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses did not justify forcing people into commerce.

Those rulings arguably were not essential to the decision. Once the Court (the Chief Justice and the four liberal Justices) found that the mandate was justified under the power of Congress to tax, the Court could have stopped right there, declined to address the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause arguments, and the result would have been the same. Indeed, the four liberal Justices in the majority on the tax issue were in the dissent on the other issues.

The Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause holdings may be deemed limited by some future composition of the Court to the unique facts of the Obamacare mandate, or worse, considered mere dicta, meaning opining by the Court which while informative is not binding on inferior or future Courts because not essential to the ruling.

Ilya Somin makes this point as well:

More @ Legal Insurrection