Posted on 06/26/2012 7:32:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via DrewM, I'm embarrassed that it didn’t occur to me in the other post to ask whether any of the Court's liberals have taken on a conspicuously lighter workload lately. Sotomayor's written the fewest among the Court's left wing, according to Sean Trende, but that might be due to the fact that she's a junior justice and isn't getting as many assigned to her.
What's Ginsburg been up to, though?
There are three cases left on the court’s docket, and the cases will be released in reverse order of the authoring justice’s seniority — beginning with Justice Elena Kagan, the newest justice.
Chief Justice John Roberts is expected to author the majority ruling in the health case — because of its significance and because Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the Arizona opinion, which was the second most controversial case of the term. Plus, neither he nor Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have published any opinions since May 24. During that time, every other justice has published at least two majority opinions.
Here's the list of slip opinions for the term at the Court's website. Since May 21, every justice besides Roberts and Ginsburg has authored at least two majority opinions. It's a lead-pipe cinch that there'll be some enormous omnibus dissent responding to the majority in the ObamaCare case, and since Roberts is almost certainly writing for the Court, that leaves RBG as the likeliest suspect for the dissent. Which means the mandate, and maybe the entire statute, is going bye bye.
Or … does it mean something more complex? More from that Politico piece:
The court could strike all of the remaining law, none of the remaining law, just two key insurance reforms, or something in between. So there could be three or more coalitions of justices with similar views, resulting in some kind of 3-4-2 vote breakdown…
For instance: the three most conservative justices could argue that the whole law should come down with the mandate. The four liberal justices could say that the whole remainder of the law should remain in place. And two justices could say that the mandate and insurance reforms should fall. In that case, the four justices would have the most votes, but they wouldn’t have a majority.
So the coalition of three and two justices would essentially combine, and the least common denominator — striking the mandate and insurance reforms — would be the law of the land.
Yeah, given the multiplicity of issues involved in this case, it’d be amazing if there wasn’t a clusterfark of plurality opinions on Thursday morning. Which makes me think, what if they’re splitting the opinion in two, with Roberts writing for five justices on the mandate, say, and Ginsburg writing for five justices on the Medicaid expansion and severability? (Politico notes that this is possible.) Maybe that’s why she’s been quiet for so long — she’s trying to piece together a majority opinion of her own and reworking it as her colleagues object to certain passages in her draft.
Exit question: The mandate gets cashiered but the rest of the statute stays more or less intact. Good enough?
Exactly on the money.
Some dying kid anecdote for Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Matthews to fake cry about.
The most important decisions, written by the most senior judge, are AFAIK issued last. Other decisions are worthy of attention too, so get those out and looked at _before_ something is issued which will attract all interest. If they issued the ObamaCare decision first, nobody would pay any attention to, and would stomp all over the process of releasing, any other verdicts.
Well, if she is in fact writing the dissent, is that not a good sign ? (hope and pray this is so)
That was my initial thought exactly.
CA....
Then they were very unobservant, as Benjamin Franklin was 81 when the Constiution was adopted.
It struck me last night that the staggering of the decisions might not bode well for Obamacare being struck down. I think the most likely outcome is striking the mandate and leaving the rest alone, but with Kagan in the game and the last decision raising the possibility of a Roberts defection, its not impossible we’re in for a bumpier ride than we’ve planned for.
It could be the complete opposite I guess.. struck down in toto, and hopefully by 7-3 or greater. If its 5-4 again the libs are gonna go nuts. Might be fun to watch but its going to again lower the legitimacy of the court in the eyes of people who dislike the appearance of USSC partisanship.
I guess we'll find out Thursday.
And yet such a ruling would be consistent with the progression of Wickard v. Filburn and Gonzales v. Raich.
I think it is taking so long because the court did not want to have to do business with throngs of labor, occupiers, candle burning religiots, acorn types types they expect to mob the building for days following their smack down of socialism. Read the ruling then flee.
RE: In other words —— WE KNOW NOTHING!
Here’s my best guess — Dissents are for the minority who disagree with the majority.
We know that Ginsburg is from the LIBERAL wing of the SCOTUS.
Therefore, it can be deduced that the MAJORITY have decided against what Ginsburg is FOR.
And what is Ginsburg usually for ? ANSWER: BIGGER GOVERNMENT ( and isn’t ObamaCare a big government program?).
RE: Well, if she is in fact writing the dissent, is that not a good sign ? (hope and pray this is so)
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Here’s my best guess — Dissents are for the minority who disagree with the majority.
We know that Ginsburg is from the LIBERAL wing of the SCOTUS.
Therefore, it can be deduced that the MAJORITY have decided against what Ginsburg is FOR.
And what is Ginsburg usually for ? ANSWER: BIGGER GOVERNMENT ( and isn’t ObamaCare a big government program?).
My guess is that the SC knows that there will be protests no matter which way the decision goes, so they want to be issuing the ruling as they exit through a back entrance of the court. If they had issued the ruling earlier, they would have to stay in town and deal with the protesters, which they are too chicken to do. Just a guess.
I am not losing any sleep... when your atty can’t answer “the broccolli question” you don’t have a leg to stand on. While the court may let some of the law stand, there is no way the individual mandate will surivive, in fact, that portion of the law will most likely be struck down 9-0 or 8-1 (the 1 being Sodamayor or however you spell her name). There just isn’t enough pretzel logic in the world to let that one stand.
I’m not feeling very positive about the decision on Thursday, and I’m trying to prepare for the worst, but I see some differences with the decision yesterday and what could happen on Thursday. Even though Roberts and Kennedy went against what we would have wanted, there is some constitutional authority that they went with. You and I may not agree, but I can see where they are coming from.
The healthcare bill is a different story. I don’t see any part of the Constitution that can support any of the conservative justices going along with it. Not to say it won’t happen. I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to deal with the major league disappointment of the decision not going our way, or a split decision on parts that won’t, in effect, end this monstrosity. I’m just trying to keep busy so the next 2 days will go by fast and end this misery of not knowing.
Ginsburg is the old lady who was observed sleeping during a recent session of the Court, right? Are we certain she even writes her own opinions?
I believe it is a well known fact that toward the end of his time on the bench, Thurgood Marshall’s clerks wrote his opinions while he watched soap operas and took naps.
Thanks apillar,Trying to digest this.So Chief Justice Roberts will give the Majority opinion but we have no clue how the majority voted.
The WORST outcome would be to strike down the individual mandate but allow the rest. Individuals would be able to “not buy insurance until they needed it (got sick).” Insurance costs would multiply exponentially, and employers would be forced to stop providing insurance, or go broke themselves.
Since insurance companies would not be allowed to turn these sick people away (pre-existing conditions), the companies would quickly go bankrupt.
With no health insurance companies, and no HMO’s, only the very rich would be able to afford healthcare.
The result would be TOTAL CHAOS chaos for US healthcare. The only remedy would then be total government takeover, massive tax hikes, and ultimately, national economic ruin.
I’m confident that the court realizes this and will strike down the whole thing as unconstitutional.
Then we can implement some common sense incremental healthcare and insurance improvements, such as portability and tort reform.
Yep. All week the MSM has been crowing about the millions of 26-year-olds allowed to stay on their parents plans and the pre-existing clause. Which is exactly why the POS front-loaded those provisions.
For almost 80 years we have been saddled with the failed Keynesian Economic System. It has bankrupted the US Federal Government.
The derivatives of the WW2 Wage and Price Control Dictates are as follows: Medicare, Medicaid, Romney”care” and Obama”care.”
All of these vote-buying gimmicks are funded by debt created by the failed Keynesian Economic System.
Currently this Debt is charged to those who cannot vote: our Grandchildren’s future descendants.
There will be additional calls for State Constitutional Conventions if the Republicans try to preserve or retain ANY of Obama or Romney”care.”
Obama”care” is the Death Knell for America. It must be ABOLISHED FOREVER if America is to survive.
If Obama”care” does survive, then I favor Regional Areas of the former United States of America. I think the States that the XL Pipeline will run through makes excellent sense for one Region, called The Texas Region. The Mississippi Region would be those States that the Mississippi River runs through. Pacific and Atlantic Regions are obvious, as are the Rocky Mountain States.
In this way people could vote with their feet and move to a greater or lesser degree of personal Liberty.
The Great Experiment of forcing the United States of America back into the European Feudal System began with FDR’s Social Security System and will end with Obama”care.”
No need for armed conflict, as we have already tried that with our bloody Civil War.
Just hold State Constitutional Conventions, split up the former USA into multi State Regions, and hold Fourth of July “Remember When Days” once a year, as we thank our lucky Stars that we in NO WAY are like Europe.
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