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Supreme Court to Consider Obamacare Case Friday (private meeting, Justice's Conference)
American Spectator ^ | April 14, 2011 | David Catron

Posted on 04/14/2011 3:39:00 PM PDT by prairiebreeze

When the U.S. Supreme Court is in session, each Wednesday and Friday afternoon is set aside for an esoteric conclave known as the Justices' Conference. During these private meetings, the justices discuss cases they have recently heard or might decide to hear. The first order of business usually involves the latter, requests from various litigants for the high court to review cases that have been adjudicated by lower courts. Typically, these cases have already been through the appellate process, but occasionally the justices receive a "petition for certiorari before judgment" asking them to consider the decision of some District Court before it has been reviewed by a Court of Appeals. Friday's conference schedule includes consideration of one such petition, filed pursuant to Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius.

The Virginia case was, of course, the first legal challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) received a major defeat. Last December, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson ruled that Congress had exceeded its constitutional limits by including a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance in the health care "reform" law. Shortly following this ruling, the Obama DOJ filed an appeal in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, but Virginia Attorney

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: justices; obamacare; scotus; va; virginia
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To: NFHale

Each and every one will be counted soon.

With unions, judges, dem party, commies, president, all trying to destroy the USA, the reset button is predictable, the question is when.

Regards


41 posted on 04/15/2011 8:56:21 AM PDT by devistate one four (United states code 10.311 Militia Kimber CDP II .45 OORAH! TET68)
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To: devistate one four

“We are enough to do our country loss.”


42 posted on 04/15/2011 9:17:43 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: All

wall street wants obamacare
obamacare will be forced upon the citizens.

remember sotomayor was picked as a reward for ending “pass through” garnishments which creditors were seizing claims the banks were using to gain “float income” as large sums passed through their accounts in transit to other banks.


43 posted on 04/15/2011 9:18:10 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: OldDeckHand

If you’re interested, Kevin Walsh, a former Scalia clerk and current Asst. Professor at Virginia, makes his case why the particular Old Dominion case is (likely) fatefully flawed.

I’m not particularly impressed by the merits of - or lack of - that brief, although I agree that the Florida case may very well be heard first.


44 posted on 04/15/2011 10:25:23 AM PDT by bill1952 (Choice is an illusion created between those with power - and those without)
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To: OldDeckHand

I hope you are right. Despite the desire to see Obamacare stricken from the books at th earliest possible moment, the MOST important thing is that the Supreme Court does, sooner of later, strike it down. I think the FL case is much stronger and, in any case, there is a good reason to go through the appeals process - so we can see exactly the case the DOJ intends to make. My recollection is that oral arguments before the Supreme Court are limited to about an hour per side - including the questions interjected by the judges. I believe we need the experience of the appeals process to tune our arguments so they can be made as briefly as possible before the 2 Obama appointees start eating up time with irrelevant questions. Losing the VA case (which I think is likely on a technicality) puts us in a terrible position when FL makes it to the Court.


45 posted on 04/15/2011 10:40:51 AM PDT by In Maryland ("Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day ..." - Caroline Baum)
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To: bill1952
"I’m not particularly impressed by the merits of - or lack of - that brief"

Hey, I'm all ears why you think the Court is going to reverse or ignore itself and set aside its self-imposed "limits on statutory subject-matter jurisdiction over declaratory judgment actions in which a state seeks a declaration that a state statute is not preempted by federal law."

Ironically, when VA enacted a state law to presumably guarantee that it would have standing to sue in federal court, it actually foreclosed it's ability to sue in federal court using that state statute. Walsh capably explains why, as a matter of law, that is true.

Cuccinelli made a tactical error, but he shouldn't be too embarrassed because it's an error that a throng of Obama DoJ lawyers didn't catch themselves.

BTW, Walsh is regarded as one of the brightest, more promising minds in the conservative legal movement - and he is just that, a movement conservative.

46 posted on 04/15/2011 10:50:36 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: In Maryland
I wouldn't get too hung-up on the Oral arguments - where each side is allowed a short period for an opening statement, followed immediately by :30 minutes of questioning, and then a short rebuttal time varying between 5-10 minutes. Many professional court-watchers opine that they're wholly worthless; Just a show for the Justices themselves. That's the reason Thomas doesn't participate.

What really matters to the Court are the appellate records and the Amicus briefs that are filed, which are all generally read before oral arguments.

47 posted on 04/15/2011 10:59:03 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: prairiebreeze; STARWISE; maggief; onyx; Liz

Has anyone heard anything yet?


48 posted on 04/15/2011 11:23:58 AM PDT by hoosiermama (ONLY DEAD FISH GO WITH THE FLOW.......I am swimming with Sarahcudah! Sarah has read the tealeaves.)
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To: hoosiermama; prairiebreeze

First I’ve heard anything about it. I think the Marxist is stalling the case in the lower courts, because he’s hoping one of our guys will die so that he can appoint another libtard to SCOTUS to stack his side of the vote.

Chief Justice Roberts could reach down to take the case and he should!


49 posted on 04/15/2011 11:30:53 AM PDT by onyx (If you truly support Sarah Palin and want to be on her busy ping list, let me know!)
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To: onyx
"Chief Justice Roberts could reach down to take the case and he should!"

This seems to be a very popular misconception, especially here, but it simply is not true. There have been a number of federal statutes enacted over the last 235+ years that spell out precisely how and when the Supreme Court can hear cases: Judiciary Act of 1891, Judiciary Act of 1925 and the Supreme Court Case Selections Act of 1988 most recently. But, even before the Judiciary Act of 1891 that for the first time established America's Circuit Courts, in almost all cases, the Supreme Court couldn't intervene until there was either an interlocutory appeal, or an appeal of final judgement.

The CJ does have perhaps a bit more influence than the other justices, if for no other reason than he sets the agenda during these kinds of conference meetings, but at the end of the day, it still takes four justices to agree that a case be heard, providing it isn't one of the exceedingly rare cases where the Court enjoys original and exclusive jurisdiction. This isn't one of those rare cases. If it were, the case would have been filed as a complaint directly with the Court. It wasn't.

50 posted on 04/15/2011 11:57:00 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: onyx

This is a great link if you want to read and understand more about the country’s plentiful and sometimes confusing federal court system.

http://www.uscourts.gov/EducationalResources/FederalCourtBasics/CourtStructure/UnderstandingFederalAndStateCourts.aspx


51 posted on 04/15/2011 11:58:55 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: LibLieSlayer
They should all be impeached if they refuse to hear this case in a timely fashion... but nothing will happen because we have an all powerful government that has seized all rights and with them our Liberties.

The average joe on the street upon hearing your words would give you a dumb puzzling look.

52 posted on 04/15/2011 12:09:12 PM PDT by Digger ((If RINO is your selection, then failure is your election))
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To: Digger

The average Joe on the street is the reason we are in the middle of the crap pie... don’t you think? Joe being the uninformed, undereducated, lazy 47% that do not pay any taxes and suckle on the Fed’s tit.

LLS


53 posted on 04/15/2011 12:42:55 PM PDT by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!!!)
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To: hoosiermama

No I haven’t.


54 posted on 04/15/2011 12:55:21 PM PDT by prairiebreeze ("We need to be in it to win it, and if there's doubt we need to get out". -- Palin on Libya.)
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To: OldDeckHand
"What really matters to the Court are the appellate records and the Amicus briefs that are filed, which are all generally read before oral arguments."

True, unless there are no sunstantive appellate records upon which to rely, which I fear would be the case if VA went straight to the Supreme Court.

55 posted on 04/15/2011 1:19:50 PM PDT by In Maryland ("Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day ..." - Caroline Baum)
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To: LibLieSlayer
The average Joe on the street is the reason we are in the middle of the crap pie... don’t you think? Joe being the uninformed, undereducated, lazy 47% that do not pay any taxes and suckle on the Fed’s tit.

True, but the real reason is that WE forgot that "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." Too many of US sat out the elections of 2008 & 2006. Too many of US have been asleep for 50 years!

56 posted on 04/15/2011 2:37:12 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: Da Bilge Troll

I am 56... I have never failed to vote... but yes you are correct... and joe is one of THEM.

LLS


57 posted on 04/15/2011 2:42:14 PM PDT by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!!!)
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To: longtermmemmory

You are right about Wall Street, and the unionized giant corporations of the rust belt want it to erase their negotiating errors.


58 posted on 04/15/2011 2:47:10 PM PDT by steve8714 (Firing Federal Bureaucrats would have a 100,000x beneficial effect on the deficit, maybe more.)
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To: OldDeckHand
As I said, this is a facial challenge to a statute that is based centrally on a provision of the statute that won't be enforceable for another two years. That's why there - from a legal standpoint - is no immediate (which is part of the requisite standard) harm in not hearing the case in an expedited manner.

Yeah, because in two years, and not incrementally and partially and sequentially building until then, everyone will suddenly have to come up with a buck twenty five, and so for all intents and purposes, the timing of the enfoceability of the statute begins at that future point, to a degree which has trivial economic impact to the threshold of considering prior court action.

No?

What, you say that it's not a buck twenty five, but trillions of dollars and a sixth of the economy and a hundred thousand medically-related businesses and tens of millions of people having to incrementally and partially and sequentially prepare for the next two years to meet the statute's requirements, at tremendous cost and expense of time and money, significantly effecting almost every aspect of their lives?

Oh.

Well then, that might, just might, maybe, constitute an immediate harm, since consdieration of immediate harm is, in fact, part of how the Court works. But hey, internet experts everywhere highly doubt this will meet certain standards of urgency that the general population, naive as they always are, simply don't understand.

Standards, like, uh, overfreekingwhelming SCALE of impact, for example. A trillion dollars here, fifty million people there, and all of a sudden everyone is whining.

: Sigh: Nobody understands law anymore.

59 posted on 04/15/2011 4:20:57 PM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on its own.)
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To: Talisker
"But hey, internet experts everywhere highly doubt this will meet certain standards of urgency that the general population, naive as they always are, simply don't understand. "

Well then, I'm sure the Court will bow to your legal superiority and will certainly hear the case sometime next week.

Would you like to place any wagers?

Somehow, I think this internet expert will be safely in the company of names like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito this time next week. But hey, what do those guys know?

60 posted on 04/15/2011 5:06:48 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
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