Posted on 09/26/2011 5:05:19 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Washington - The Obama administration set the stage Monday for the Supreme Court to rule early next year on the constitutionality of the president’s healthcare law by declining to press for a full appeal in a lower court.
The Justice Department announced it will forgo an appeal to the full U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Such an appeal to the 10-member court could have taken months and delayed a final decision from the high court until at least 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
... by early next year.
By then nobamacare will have grown too big to fail.
It will have to be killed by the next administration.
+++++++++++++
I have to admit that I'm quite surprised by this move by Obama. Maybe they know something we don't e.g. Kennedy's likey vote, possible Thomas' recusal, wavering by Roberts, Alito or Scalia. In any case this tells me that the Obama expects to win the appeal. If not he would certainly have ordered the lawyers to ask for a full Circuit Court review which would have moved the Supreme Court decision to 2013.
Supreme Court could rule on healthcare law early next year
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Maybe they know something we don't e.g. Kennedy's likey vote, possible Thomas' recusal, wavering by Roberts, Alito or Scalia. In any case this tells me that the 0_bama expects to win the appeal. If not he would certainly have ordered the lawyers to ask for a full Circuit Court review which would have moved the Supreme Court decision to 2013.
I don’t think that this was wise for the obama administration to expedite the case to SCOTUS. If the law or even the mandate is struck down, obama will be viewed as a loser and this will demoralize his base. If the law is upheld, the TP and GOP will have an even bigger issue to run on. Even worse, upholding the law will scare investors and tank the markets as business brace for more mandates and big government programs.
Perhaps, obama wants the SCOTUS to strike down some of the law as a way to give the economy a ‘stimulus’ that could actually work. Obama could also argue for a single payor ‘Medicare for all’ plan that the Left really wants as a Constitutional replacement. His call for single payor will also be bolstered the increased number of uninsured that his plan helped to create.
I think it has more to do with "The Regime" worrying about the health of one if its leftist judges on the court.
The Obamaton decision to go immediately to the SCOTUS could also mean that they aren't very confident of their chances in the full (en banc) 11th Circuit review. It would be foolish to delay the inevitable SCOTUS case merely to suffer an additional setback below..
There also could be another consideration: if a GOP administration is in office by 2013 and Obama is gone, the new Justice Department could then agree with the state attorney generals to concede their case; i.e., stipulate that the Obamacare individual mandate is unconstitutional, before argument is scheduled in the SCOTUS. So the Obama (In)Justice Dept. might be inclined to speed things up for fear of losing their case by default due to a change in administrations.
The administration wants a political issue in 2012. If they win, Obama has a big victory before the election. If he loses, he has an issue to energize his rabid base and a reason for them to turn out and get him back in office.
It could be argued that either outcome would energize both sides. Obama clearly has chosen to elevate the intensity on both sides. He is deliberately confrontational, the opposite of triangulation. He must be desperate to motivate the base ; this is a hail Mary pass.
If he loses, 5-4, he can run against right-wing justices on the court and congress. He can make the election a referendum on Republican obstruction to progress. I think this is exactly what he wants because he's got nothing else.
If he wins, he wins. If he delayed going to SCOTUS, the next administration could do what he did with Defense of Marriage Act and not appeal to the Supreme Court.
You raise the more likely issue. If the lower appeals court sustains Obamacare’s unconstitutionality, the supreme court has two new rubber stamps, Sotomayor and Kagan, who are unlikely to have been removed because of Obama’s ineligibility. They had personal financial vulnerability had the court voted to hear one of the cases raising the ineligibility issue and requiring interpretation of natural born citizenship, and didn't recuse themselves. Had the court confirmed the precedence established by Minor v. Happersett, that a natural born citizen is born on the soil of citizen parents, Barack's appointments of them is moot.
If Ginsberg is a guaranteed vote for socialism, with lots of other ifs, having the packed court lock the unpopular program before Hillary becomes the nominee is more likely to allow Hillary to be a two term president. Obama was projected and protected to do the dirty work so that Hillary could milk the resources now controlled by the government, sharing what wealth remains with her friends. Remember Hillary was an acolyte of Saul Alinsky a couple of decades before Barack’s indoctrination.
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