“It’s not so much that the court has, in one stroke, affirmed his legislative legacy,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor who taught both Mr. Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts. “That will depend on what happens down the road. But there is an interdependence here: the court’s decision to say, ‘this is not an un-American act’ is critical.”

Decision Preserves Obama’s Play for a Historic Presidency