Posted on 03/23/2016 8:14:01 AM PDT by oblomov
Before Tuesday, Id have said that Puerto Rico had no chance to win its legal fight to let its municipalities and utilities declare bankruptcy. That's how the island hopes to resolve its overwhelming debt problems, but the federal bankruptcy code says that it can't.
That's what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held last summer, unanimously. The statute seemed so clear that even Judge Juan Torruella, the appellate courts only Puerto Rican member, concurred in an outraged separate opinion criticizing the federal law.
Puerto Rico's Slide
Then Sonia Sotomayor stepped in. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court rarely change the outcome of a case, yet Tuesday's session may turn out to be the exception. In a fascinating and unusual argument, Justice Sotomayor, who is herself of Puerto Rican descent, spoke by my count an astonishing 45 times. Sotomayor left no doubt that she was speaking as an advocate.
The interpretation of the law she favored would make the system fairer to Puerto Rico, allowing the commonwealth to create its own emergency bankruptcy measures outside federal law. But it depends on a highly doubtful reading of the statute, one that stretches credulity when read into the text. Ideally, Congress will hear what happened at the oral argument and pass one of the reform proposals its currently considering that would spare the court from having to decide the case.
Sotomayor walked Puerto Ricos attorney, Christopher Landau, through his own argument with a precision that exceeded his own. She answered other justices hostile questions for him, better than he did. Then she dominated Matthew McGill, the lawyer for the creditors of Puerto Ricos electrical utility, who are fighting the bankruptcy bid. In the second half of the argument, the other justices mostly stood by and let her go at him.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Sotomayor should recuse herself from this case. Her behavior, as described in this article, is an embarrassment.
PR would be better off to declare itself separate from the US....become a country, and attract companies via a tax-free status to set up and provide jobs for the economy.
The “wise latino” who should not be a judge at all, nevermind a justice of the Supreme Court.
If only, if only somehow we could in our infinite appeasing, quisling liberal conniving goodness just accommodate the citizens of Puerto Rico by GIVING them statehood with two Senators and some Congressmen without that pesky Federal Income Tax Requirement, actually paying off their damned debt, or deleting their SSDI payments for being ‘disabled’ by only speaking Spanish......if only.
The ‘wise Latina’ isn’t interested in the United States; she’s interested in bringing it down.
Thank goodness that we have a wide Latina holding down the Bench.
It’s the Dumb Latina.
Another system that ran out of other people’s money
Their problem is their socialist big government approach.
We shouldn’t bail them out, they should simply reform their approach to their economy.
But if/since they won’t, I wouldn’t mind seeing them go. They never would, of course, because they wouldn’t want to lose our subsidies and US citizenship.
While I agree with the First Cir 100%, Judges do this ALL the time. I’ve argued enough cases (and at the appellate level( where I hve wanted to say a couple times “would you please stop trying the case for the other side”.
Obviously whoever wrote the article doesn’t understand how the system works.
All of my FRiends with money in tax-free bond funds should review the fund’s bond list. A lot of them have substantial holdings in Puerto Rican bonds and, if the wide Latina gets her way, will see those holdings’ value drop to zero.
I don’t see the Supreme Court reversing a unanimous verdict 5-3.
And now the bond holder lawyers claim is that there really wasn't any risk since PR couldn't declare bankruptcy?
SCOTUS going 4-4 on this knowing there's no precedent risk seems like a fair bet.
“PR would be better off to declare itself separate from the US....become a country, and attract companies via a tax-free status to set up and provide jobs for the economy.”
PR cannot run itself. It’s just plain ol’ Latin American corruption that holds it back. If they became a country - the Social Security, Disability, and Medicare/Medicaid payments would stop and the population would starve.
The smart and productive leave the island.
PR will be competing with Cuba for investment dollars now. It doesn’t look good for them.
Why is Sam Alito recused?
Is this an intentional power play by John Roberts to give the leftists (Kagan, Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomajor) a sure majority?
“””The case will be decided by seven justices, since the late Justice Antonin Scalia hasnt been replaced and Justice Samuel Alito is recused. That means Sotomayor would need four votes to win. Chief Justice John Roberts spoke briefly, expressing skepticism about Puerto Ricos position. Justice Clarence Thomas was silent. So was Justice Anthony Kennedy”””
What is going on???
Alito owns Puerto Rican bonds.
Democrat money laundering.
Judges don’t give advise on how to win your case. She is not a real judge; sorry any lovers of change for the sake of change...
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