Posted on 07/24/2014 5:48:45 PM PDT by SteveH
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There is indeed Supreme Court precedent stating that courts can sometimes refuse to enforce the plain meaning of a statute where doing so creates an absurd result. But, as Judge Griffith’s D.C. Circuit opinion emphasizes (quoting an earlier DC Circuit ruling), it is limited to cases where enforcement of the text would “render[ the] statute nonsensical or superfluous or . . . create an outcome so contrary to perceived social values that Congress could not have intended it.” In this case, however, the result is far from nonsensical. Indeed, the DC Circuit’s interpretation of the ACA reflects the sort of “cooperative federalism” approach that left of center academics and policy experts often praise in other contexts.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What we, AND THE COURTS, don’t know is exactly what wording was needed to get the required number of votes to pass it.
Perhaps there were a few moderate Dems in the House that would not support the bill, UNLESS the federal government was prohibited from subsidizing policies, for the federal exchange. Maybe that was their price.
I’m not sure why that might be, but to ignore the WORDS in the bill is nullifying what those people who put those words in...and can only lead to REALLY BAD things happening in the future, when courts decide to RE-INTERPRET bills.
It is worth following the link to read the comments. Most are surprisingly intelligent for Washington Post readers.
roger that!
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