As one of my colleagues noted privately, expect this potential strategy to get some traction in the coming months: “If the administration loses in King [v. Burwell], it can announce that it is complying with the Supreme Court’s judgment — but only with respect to the four plaintiffs who brought the suit.” …Sure, Democrats. Give the President that precedent. Give ALL future Presidents that precedent. Continue reading NYT Op-Ed advocates giving President a precedent for ignoring Supreme Court. …Wait, what?
Tag: us supreme court
#rsrh I admit it: I blanked on Stephen Breyer.
(H/T: Hot Air Headlines.) Then again, so does everybody else.
The most anonymous member of the court, according to the survey, was Stephen Breyer, with 3% of respondents naming him. Justices Anthony Kennedy (10%), Samuel Alito (5%) and Elena Kagan (4%) each were named by 10% or fewer of the people surveyed.
Seriously… what the heck has Stephen Breyer done, while on the Court? Even his Wikipedia entry can’t come up with anything interesting. He’s the Herb Kohl of the Supreme Court! Continue reading #rsrh I admit it: I blanked on Stephen Breyer.
48 hours later: Jan Crawford’s explosive, unverified, Supreme Court allegations.
Executive summary: two days ago CBS News Chief Political and Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford authored an article that alleged that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ‘went wobbly’ on Thursday’s Supreme Court decision for reasons unrelated to his determination of the legal merits of the case. Ms. Crawford also alleged that there is ongoing fallout between Roberts and the four Justices that dissented with the 5-4 majority that held that Obamacare was legal as a tax; and she is at least insinuating that Roberts’ decision was based on calculation of how the decision would be received by the American Left and/or the Media (but I repeat myself). As you might imagine, this story has gotten a little play in conservative and Republican news sources, in much the same way that the Amazon river is somewhat damp.
Now, the above is a rather serious allegation about Chief Justice Roberts. And it is in fact an allegation that – if true – is very problematical. But what is also problematical is that the entire story rests on two uncorroborated, anonymous sources. Now, admittedly, Jan Crawford is a very well-respected, very knowledgeable, and very well-connected reporter on the Supreme Court. She is, in fact, more well-respected, more knowledgeable, and more well-connected than I am on this matter. But… her story is still based on two uncorroborated, anonymous sources; and in the forty-eight hours I have not in fact seen anything that would back up the allegations in her story. The closest to it that I have seen is John Fund’s article; John indicates that his anonymous sources are telling him that Roberts had been pretty much equivocal about tossing the entire law all along. Now that, if true, is a significant difference from Crawford’s lede “Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations. ” – and it doesn’t actually address any suggestion that Roberts changed his mind on non-judicial grounds. Continue reading 48 hours later: Jan Crawford’s explosive, unverified, Supreme Court allegations.
#rsrh QotD, Says Everything About Obamacare, Really edition.
Forbes, on the novel idea that the government can’t do every dam-fool thing that comes into its collective head:
The Supreme Court should not act as a continuing constitutional convention.
Indeed.
Moe Lane
#rsrh QotD, The Blind Lecturing The… Not Blind, I Guess edition.
George Will, gently explaining to Senator Patrick Leahy – a man who, as Will puts it, “probably no longer knows when he sounds insufferably patronizing” – why he’s probably going to be swinging and missing when it comes to trying to break Chief Justice John Roberts to what we will charitably call Sen. Leahy’s ‘will:’
Leahy intimated that overturning Obamacare would be as momentous, as divisive of the nation and as damaging to the court as was Bush v. Gore, which he asserts “shook the confidence of the American people in the Supreme Court.” But surely a striking fact about that decision is how equably Americans accepted it. This testified to the court’s durable prestige, which is a function of the court’s immunity to pressures from politicians. Public approval of the court is above 50 percent, that of Congress below 20 percent.
I’ll add the obvious point that Leahy is himself one of the reasons why Congress is loathed so much. Thirty-plus years in the Senate, and what is he going to be best-remembered for? Being an extra in The Dark Knight. Which is admittedly cool, but all the things that he’ll be worst-remembered for – including Obamacare, if we’re not lucky – are going to kind of overwhelm it…
(H/T Hot Air Headlines)
Supreme Court will not expedite Obamacare suit.
To summarize: Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General for Virginia, requested that the US Supreme Court expedite its presumed-inevitable review of the Virginia Obamacare suit currently wending its way through the lower courts (this is the suit that found the individual mandate both unconstitutional, and severable, from the rest of Obamacare*). The court has declined to do so; which means that the issue will probably not be actually addressed until the summer of 2012. This decision is of note for two reasons:
- The eventual Supreme Court decision will be – no matter what it actually is – a burning issue in the 2012 Presidential election. The White House apparently thinks that this will end up helping the President; to which I respond that the White House should stop and think about its to-date track record when it comes to predicting popular opinion. Or, more accurately, that it should not, as so far said track record has been very helpful for the Republican party.
- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan apparently did not recuse herself from this particular situation – this, despite evidence that suggests that she should recuse herself, given her possible involvement in the Department of Justice’s original plans to challenge Obamacare (remember, Kagan at that time was Solicitor General). There was a FOIA request made on these issues; it may not be wise for the White House to let that go unfilled until the summer of 2012, too.
Continue reading Supreme Court will not expedite Obamacare suit.