Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
BLOGGER VS. BLOGGER: Obama Stirs the Pot With Supreme Court Comments
President Obama on Tuesday pulled back on previous comments on last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments over the constitutionality of the federal health reform law, after those remarks were rebuked by several Republican lawmakers. Conservative and liberal bloggers also were critical of the President’s statements.
Are the Reports of the Individual Mandate’s Death Greatly Exaggerated? (And Five Key Reads To Prepare You for Day Three)
If you believe the immediate reaction from the pundits after today’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court case against the federal health reform law, the individual mandate is dead.
The general consensus, if you haven’t determined it already, is that Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s poor performance in today’s arguments – contrasted by a fantastic performance from the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Paul Clement – will mean the court is likely to strike down the individual mandate in the overhaul. Judging from the following tweets, it’s almost a foregone conclusion.
@jamiedupree Today’s headline from the US Supreme Court – Individual Mandate in Trouble http://bit.ly/Hd7mbQ
@JeffreyToobin: Train wreck for @barackobama in #supremecourt today.
@kpickert The individual mandate legal fight takes a dark turn for the Obama Administration. My piece on today’s #SCOTUS http://ti.me/GX9D5O
@jenhab After oral arugments today, health law’s mandate is in trouble. http://politi.co/HhTew4
@ezraklein Justices are 90% decided on this before oral argument. That said, looks like individual mandate is on life support. Heh.
But wait just a minute.
It seems like just yesterday we were reading that Supreme Court oral arguments matter little in the grand scheme of things and that the justices — having read the briefs filed in the case — mostly have made up their mind.
In fact, just last summer, Justice Samuel Alito told a crowd of 500 lawyers in St. Louis that the unimportance of oral arguments is one of the top 10 things people don’t know about the high court.
It’s no surprise that Justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t think much of oral arguments. Thomas – who hasn’t made a peep in the court since 2006 — once infamously said, “So why do you beat up on people if you already know? . . . I refuse to participate. I don’t like it, so I don’t do it.”
Meanwhile, a post on the blog “D.C. Circuit Review” notes:
Justice Scalia, in a book co-authored by Bryan Garner, wrote that while oral argument rarely changes a judge’s mind, it often helps an undecided judge make up his mind when “the case is a close one.”
Of course, the post also notes that Chief Justice John Roberts thinks “that oral argument is terribly, terribly important.”
So, it’s not that the pundits are wrong. In fact, they very well may be right: Verrilli could have cost the Obama administration at least part of its signature achievement. However, it’s impossible to know at this moment what the court will decide, and it might be forever unknown to us what led to the justices’ ultimate ruling. In fact, only one thing’s for sure: There’s no way for us to know what the court will decide, until it decides.
After the jump, five key reads to prepare you for Wednesday’s oral arguments.
AHL’s TOP STORY: More Than Half of Poll Respondents Say SCOTUS Will Strike Down Individual Mandate
Fifty-one percent of respondents to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest tracking poll believe that the federal health reform law’s individual mandate should be declared unconstitutional and 53% of them expect the Supreme Court to do so, USA Today reports (Wolf, USA Today, 3/14).
AHL’s TOP STORY: Supreme Court Sends California Medicaid Lawsuit Back to Appellate Court
The Supreme Court yesterday declined to rule on a California lawsuit that could determine whether Medicaid beneficiaries and providers can sue states over reimbursement cuts, the Los Angeles Times reports (Savage/Megerian, Los Angeles Times, 2/23). The justices sent the case back to a lower appellate court, noting the complexity of the case and the fact that some circumstances have changed since it originally was filed (Doyle, Sacramento Bee, 2/23). Read the rest of this entry »
AHL’S TOP STORY: DOJ Brief Argues Most of Reform Law Can Stand Without Individual Mandate
The Obama administration last week said that if the Supreme Court strikes down the federal health reform law’s individual mandate, most of the law can remain intact, Politico reports. Plaintiffs in the case have argued that the entire law must be voided if the mandate is struck down (Haberkorn, Politico, 1/27).
[Ed. Note: For background on the Supreme Court's review of the federal health reform law, click here.]
In a brief filed with the court, Department of Justice lawyers noted that just two provisions would need to be eliminated if justices deem the mandate unconstitutional: one requiring health insurers to accept individuals regardless of their health status and the other prohibiting insurers from charging higher premiums based on an individual’s medical history (Vicini, Reuters, 1/27). Read the rest of this entry »
