AT LONG LAST!!!!Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case
Challenging Health Care Overhaul Law
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. The development set the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign.
The court’s decision to step in had been expected, but Monday’s order answered many questions about just how the case would proceed. Indeed, it offered a roadmap toward a ruling that will help define the legacy of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Read More
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. The development set the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign.
The court’s decision to step in had been expected, but Monday’s order answered many questions about just how the case would proceed. Indeed, it offered a roadmap toward a ruling that will help define the legacy of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Read More
DECISIONS, DECISIONS:
The Supreme Court’s timetable for considering the health care law gives the
justices the power to make their most politically decisive ruling since they
effectively decided the 2000 presidential election.
But that’s only if a majority of the court decides it even wants to settle the question of whether the federal government has the power to compel people to buy a product in the commercial marketplace (a health insurance policy) and punish them (with a tax) if they don’t. A ruling, four months before Election Day, that the mandate is constitutional would provide a significant and perfectly timed boost to Obama and congressional Democrats — because it would enshrine for the ages their top shared domestic policy achievement. A ruling that strikes it down would grant the GOP nominee-in-waiting, and congressional Republican candidates, their No. 1 campaign season wish — because it would validate all of their vituperative derisions of “Obamacare” as an unconstitutional overreach.
The main reason the justices would take one side or the other is that the regional federal appeals courts have been split on the core question of whether the mandate is within Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. (Two have upheld the law, a third has found it unconstitutional and a fourth has ruled it’s too soon to say.) And a main function of the Supreme Court is to make consistent judicial policy when the lower courts disagree. But it’s also true (Bush v. Gore aside) that Roberts and the other conservatives who are the majority on the court have said over and over again that the judicial branch should generally look for ways to stay out of white-hot political disputes — and also should defer, if at all possible, to the will of the elected branches of government when it comes to policy disputes.
And so the easiest way to find five votes between now and June might be for one of those conservatives (the chief justice, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and that big maybe, Kennedy) to shop the view among his colleagues that it’s too soon to decide the constitutional question yet — because the mandate hasn’t actually taken effect and so no one has been “harmed” by having to pay a penalty for not obeying.
But that’s only if a majority of the court decides it even wants to settle the question of whether the federal government has the power to compel people to buy a product in the commercial marketplace (a health insurance policy) and punish them (with a tax) if they don’t. A ruling, four months before Election Day, that the mandate is constitutional would provide a significant and perfectly timed boost to Obama and congressional Democrats — because it would enshrine for the ages their top shared domestic policy achievement. A ruling that strikes it down would grant the GOP nominee-in-waiting, and congressional Republican candidates, their No. 1 campaign season wish — because it would validate all of their vituperative derisions of “Obamacare” as an unconstitutional overreach.
The main reason the justices would take one side or the other is that the regional federal appeals courts have been split on the core question of whether the mandate is within Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. (Two have upheld the law, a third has found it unconstitutional and a fourth has ruled it’s too soon to say.) And a main function of the Supreme Court is to make consistent judicial policy when the lower courts disagree. But it’s also true (Bush v. Gore aside) that Roberts and the other conservatives who are the majority on the court have said over and over again that the judicial branch should generally look for ways to stay out of white-hot political disputes — and also should defer, if at all possible, to the will of the elected branches of government when it comes to policy disputes.
And so the easiest way to find five votes between now and June might be for one of those conservatives (the chief justice, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and that big maybe, Kennedy) to shop the view among his colleagues that it’s too soon to decide the constitutional question yet — because the mandate hasn’t actually taken effect and so no one has been “harmed” by having to pay a penalty for not obeying.
