Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, sided with the Supreme Court's liberal wing on June 28 in upholding the controversial health care reform law. Roberts is seen here in 2005. 
President George W. Bush meets with Roberts for morning coffee at the White House on July 20, 2005, a day after Bush first nominated Roberts for the Supreme Court to replace outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. 
Justices file out of the Supreme Court building during funeral services for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 7, 2005. Following Rehnquist's death, President Bush announced Robert's new nomination to the position of chief justice. 
As his wife Jane holds the Bible, Chief Justice John Roberts is sworn in by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens during a ceremony at the White House on September 29, 2005. Roberts became the 17th chief justice after the Senate voted 78-22 to confirm his appointment. 
After taking the Supreme Court bench for the first time, Chief Justice Roberts leaves with his wife, Jane, and their children, Jack and Josie, on October 3, 2005. 
A day after President Obama's inauguration, Roberts re-administers the oath of office to Obama at the White House on January 21, 2009. At the official swearing in ceremony, Roberts misplaced a word in the oath and caused Obama to stumble over the recitation. 
The Supreme Court justices pose for a portrait on October 8, 2010. At the top, from left, are Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. From left on the bottom row are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy and Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg. 
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upholds all challenged portions of the health care law except for Medicaid eligibilty expansion, on June 28. In the majority opinion, Roberts said of the central element of the law, the individual mandate: "The federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. ... The federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance." - NEW: "Roberts has etched himself in history," a historian says
- A professor says that a vote against Obamacare would've threatened the court's legitimacy
- The court "always bends over backwards" to uphold Congress' laws, another professor says
- In his confirmation hearing, Roberts vowed he'd be open-minded and had "no agenda"
(CNN) -- Legal scholars expressed little surprise Thursday that the conservative chief justice of the United States -- John G. Roberts Jr. -- proved to be the key vote in upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
Breaking down the court's decision
"Had the court ruled as the four dissenters would have had it -- in a 5-4 decision, red versus blue -- that the signature act of a Democratic administration was unconstitutional, I think that would have been a very serious threat to the legitimacy of the court," said Timothy S. Jost, a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Washington.
What the health care ruling means to you
Supporters of the health care legislation celebrate after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 ruling Thursday, June 28. Journalists and supporters and protesters of the health care law gather outside the Supreme Court after the justices ruled in favor of its constitutionality in a narrow decision. 
Protesters against the health care law rally outside the Supreme Court before the justices issue their ruling Thursday. 
Reporters and camera crews begin waiting early Thursday outside the Supreme Court in anticipation of the court's health care ruling. 
President Barack Obama signs the health care legislation in a March 23, 2010, ceremony with Democrats in the White House East Room. The law, which critics dubbed Obamacare, is Obama's signature legislation. 
The constitutionality of the 2,409-page act was challenged by 26 states. The most controversial aspect of the law -- the "individual mandate" -- would require individuals not covered by insurance via their employer or the government to purchase and maintain minimal health insurance or pay a penalty. 
The Supreme Court held three days of politically charged hearings in March on the Affordable Care Act. 
Opponents of Obama's health care legislation protest in front of the Supreme Court on March 28. Critics argued the law's requirement that most Americans have health insurance or pay a fine was an unconstitutional intrusion on individual freedom. 
Advocates for universal, government-financed health care carry signs one month before the health care overhaul was signed into law. 
Two years after Obama signed the health care legislation, the Supreme Court took up the historic test of whether it's constitutional. 
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney leads demonstrators in prayer outside the Supreme Court on Monday, June 25, as they await the court's ruling. 
The high court upheld the law's central provision -- a requirement that all people have health insurance. The decision will have an immediate and long-term impact on all Americans, both in how they get medicine and health care. 
Photos: Health care and the high court "I think Americans are already very skeptical about the rule of law in the United States and believe that the court is essentially a third political branch," he said in a telephone interview.
The 57-year-old Roberts may have been thinking about the court's perceived legitimacy and about his own legacy when he crafted the decision, which couldn't have been an easy one, Jost said.
"I think he probably had to think very long and hard about how to rule in this case," the professor said.
No matter what it does, high court is seen as political
In 2005, when then-President George W. Bush tapped Roberts to be the 17th chief justice of the United States, then-Sen. Barack Obama voted against his confirmation. During his confirmation hearing, Roberts said he saw his role as a potential justice to make rulings based on the Constitution and not to set policy -- or, as he described it, "to call balls and strikes, not pitch or bat."
"I come before this committee with no agenda, no platform," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. "I will approach every case with an open mind."
Since then, Roberts' stances on campaign finance and affirmative action had led some observers to brand him a judicial activist.
Obama: Supreme Court ruling on health care a victory for all Americans
Lee: Justices not politically charged 
Health care: Key issues in SCOTUS ruling But Neal Katyal, a professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington, said that Roberts, "more than almost any justice on the court today, appreciates the institutional role of the Supreme Court and American democracy. He's a student of history, and I think today's decision was a really resounding reflection of the chief justice's values, which are (that) law is not just politics and the Constitution is not just politics, and we should think about decisions impartially and dispassionately and come to the right ones."
Katyal, who served in the Justice Department under the Clinton administration, called Thursday's decision "a resounding victory for the rule of law in America."
Ruling plays into campaign narrative for both sides
"I wasn't that surprised" by the decision, said Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown who helped write the brief for the National Federation of Business that challenged the law. "I said from day one that the Supreme Court always bends over backwards to uphold laws of Congress. That's the reason why our fight was always an uphill fight."
The law's ultimate fate, he predicted, will be decided not in any court but at the ballot box in November. "The people will decide whether they approve of this tax, this so-called tax that has been imposed upon them," he said in a telephone interview.
And the election may also be about appointing justices who do not bend over backward to uphold the laws of Congress, he said, "because the Congress cannot be the judge of the scope of its own powers, and we need an independent judiciary to do that."
Regardless of what happens this fall, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said that Roberts himself made a difference with his ruling Thursday -- not only affecting how some view the court, but how they see the chief justice himself.
The historian compared Roberts to former Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes, a former Republican governor and presidential candidate who nonetheless sided with liberal justices -- and Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- in finding Social Security to be constitutional.
"Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has etched himself in history now," Brinkley told CNN. "This, today, showed that Roberts had ... deep thought. He really played the constitutional lawyer and justice here, and I think his stock goes very high."
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