Posted on 04/03/2012 2:14:46 AM PDT by Libloather
Dems wage pressure campaign on Supreme Court over health ruling
By Alexander Bolton - 04/02/12 06:02 PM ET
Democrats have waged a not-so-subtle pressure campaign on the Supreme Court in recent days by warning a ruling against the healthcare reform law would smash precedent and threaten popular social programs.
President Obama was the latest to weigh in when he declared Monday that a wide array of legal experts would be astonished if the court struck down part or all of his signature domestic initiative.
“I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law,” Obama said Monday during a Rose Garden press conference. “That’s not just my opinion but also the opinion of legal experts across the political spectrum.”
He said it would be “unprecedented” for the court to strike down the individual mandate, which requires the uninsured to buy health coverage or pay a penalty.
Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice and a prominent advocate during Supreme Court confirmation battles, said Obama and Democrats have made it clear that they would fiercely criticize a ruling against the healthcare law.
“I do think the statements by some of the senators and the president are serving notice to the court that, frankly, if the court does overturn the law, in essence, the court will become a political football in the election,” Aron said.
“I wouldn’t have said that before of the president’s comments. By virtue of the fact that he spoke out, it does serve notice: Think twice before throwing out this baby. It will be viewed more as a political act,” she added.
Justices have shown in the recent past that they are not impervious to the president’s words and how they might influence public perception of the high court.
Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed the words “not true” when Obama criticized the court’s decision in the Citizens United case during his 2010 State of the Union address, and Aron noted that Chief Justice John Roberts has a reputation for being mindful of his legacy.
“We do know this is a justice who reads the press about himself. There have been reports about that,” Aron said.
Senior Democratic lawmakers have warned the court would upend the legal precedent that gives Congress the power to provide for the nation’s general welfare if it rules that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause does not allow the mandate to have insurance.
“If they were to throw out the healthcare law, things like Medicare, Social Security, food safety laws could be in jeopardy on the very same grounds,” Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democratic leader, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “It would be a dramatic, 180-degree turn of the tradition of the Commerce Clause.”
Democrats have cited the words of conservative legal scholars and past Republican support for the individual mandate to bolster their argument.
Schumer and Senate Health Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) have both quoted J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former president Ronald Reagan to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Wilkinson said “the idea that Congress is constitutionally disabled” from regulating the healthcare market is a “heavy judicial lift.”
Schumer called Wilkinson the dean of conservative judges on the courts of appeal and has frequently reminded reporters that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, first proposed the idea of a health insurance mandate in 1993.
Harkin said, “the opponents of healthcare reform, the Affordable Care Act, are basing their arguments on politics rather than precedents.”
“This court can go no other way but to uphold the individual mandate the Congress has put into the individual mandate,” he said at a press conference Democrats held after the second day of oral arguments.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) warned the court last week that a ruling against the healthcare reform law would have far-reaching consequences.
“I think it’s a clear-cut case. I think you have to stretch to say this is unconstitutional but Social Security, for example, or Medicare is constitutional,” Leahy said. “If you say this is unconstitutional, then you have to say Social Security and Medicare are also unconstitutional. I’m not sure the court is prepared to do that.”
Senate Republicans have taken a different tack. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has declined to predict how the court will rule.
Despite filing an amicus brief in the case, he has been relatively reticent about the legal merits of the case.
He said last week that if the court upheld the mandate, its interpretation of the Commerce Clause would be so broad as to make meaningless its constraint on federal power.
“What that leads to ultimately, we don’t know but we know the suspense will be over in June,” he said.
McConnell says regardless of how the court rules, he is committed to making repeal of the law a high priority if Republicans capture control of the Senate.
Some legal experts, however, doubt the Democratic public relations campaign will have much influence on Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is widely seen as the swing vote on the closely divided court.
“I don’t think they’ll have any impact. It’s possible they would have an adverse impact,” said Lanny Davis, who served as special counsel to former President Bill Clinton and is the principal at the law firm Lanny J. Davis & Associates.
“The history of Justice Kennedy is quite independent and thoughtful and he’ll make the decision on the merits and not on political influences. I won’t say that about every justice, some of whom came out of political world.”
Davis, a columnist for The Hill, said it is “perfectly legitimate” for justices to consider the political ramifications of their decisions.
He noted that then Chief Justice Earl Warren strove to unify his fellow justices behind a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas, knowing the decision would have broad political impact and receive criticism. That decision struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine for racial segregation.
Last week’s hearing on the 2010 healthcare reform law was the most time the Supreme Court set aside for oral arguments since Brown v. Board of Education, according to Senate sources who reviewed the record.
I agree, let’s just hope that his arrogant speech from a petulant man child is enough to thoroughly piss them off, and in their disgust OVERTURN WICKARD v FILBURN. Abolish 80% of the Federal Government in One Ruling. No that would be HOPE AND CHANGE.
This is obviously a political message to Obama’s liberal base who didnt like Obama-care in the first place but found themselves rallying behind Obama against the Republican House. Once again he plays the same act against the SCOTUS to rally them.
Note his consistent style : He says is confident that the SCOTUS will do the right thing. He said the exact same thing about the Republican House on that deficit deal he blew up. Call it Phony optimism for political effect.
The legal arguments for upholding the mandate and other parts all revolve around court precedents giving congress power to do mostly anything it wants since Roosevelt. Notice Libs don't see precedents as their limitation, like marraige definition 10,000 years as opposite sex.
This is the obama who claims that DOMA is unconstitutional. Arrogance is his name for sure.
If they throw out the individual mandate, but leave the rest in place, it is the equivalent of the Supreme Court having a Line Item Veto, which they ruled as unconstitutional for the President!
2 possibilities:
1) the vote went against him and Obama is desperately trying to flip Kennedy before June
2) the vote went for him and Obama is positioning himself to take credit.
Based on his demeanor and tone of voice I’m going with Option 1.
“If you say this is unconstitutional, then you have to say Social Security and Medicare are also unconstitutional”
I can live with that!
I concur that the timing and intensity of this hand-wringing strongly suggest Kagan has leaked word that Friday’s vote went badly for Obamacare.
Of course, all this ex parte lobbying may well backfire, as it amounts to “piling on” after the president’s attempt to publicly humiliate the Court during the SOTU. The conservative justices on SCOTUS well know the Court’s proper role and presumably are deeply offended by POTUS’s unprecedented politicking for a favored result.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but IIRC, even AlGore had the decency to keep his lips zipped while SCOTUS was deliberately during Bush v. Gore.
IMHO the news was worse than expected.
If this is a 5-4 vote, Obama can spin it as political.
A 7-2 vote, with one of his own voting against him, is much harder to explain away.
I wonder if this sort of thing would be enough to make Kennedy fold like a cheap umbrella...
Somewhere there is an ugly tree with all of its branches snapped off.
Even a 6-3 would show that one of the 4 stooges voted against him. I look for a 5-4. Which way? Who knows how Kennedy will vote?
“...We are seeing the left resort to intimidation, personal attacks, and throwing fits on a daily basis now....”
Just wait till after Ø is defeated in November. We ain’t seen nothing yet!
He screwed the pooch now. I suspect his unholier that everyone ‘tude will cause a shift in the court to 6-3.
That guy (0) is the most obnoxious SOB to ever sit in the WH.
Interesting to note that the more he loses, the more irrational he gets.
I am afraid of what he might do,
“I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law,” Obama said Monday during a Rose Garden press conference. “That’s not just my opinion but also the opinion of legal experts across the political spectrum.”
Translated:
“we have asked the opinion of people from across the spectrum for their opinions. White liberals, black liberals, Hispanic liberals, gay liberals, female liberals, handicapped liberals, old liberals and young ones too. All agree this law should be upheld”
Seriously, he lives in a real life echo chamber.
Obama throws “fag fit” the Bulldyke whispered “You lost” to
him.
i am thinking the same
Agree.... Stay safe !
Maybe you should not count your chickens yet.p> I predict that Romney will not beat Zero, and I further predict that the Zero bill will be upheld, with maybe a ruling against the mandate, which will somehow be passed on to the States.
The reason the bill will stand can be directly attributed to the GOPe.
Just my prediction, hope I am wrong for sure.
I love the smell of tyranny in the morning...smells like oppression.
Not trying to sound like Michelle, but for the first time in my life I am afraid for the safety of the Supreme Court Justices. This President his Commie buddies scare me.
This Motherhugging Kenyan Socialist Muslim Marxist Crack Smoking D**k Sucker (also known as President Barack Obama) knows full well that Judicial Review, which is their precise function, has been the job of the Supreme Court since the country was founded.
Unprecedented???!? This is the use of Hitler's Big Lie premise!!!
Let me give you a feew precedents to the Supreme Court "overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress"
1) Supreme Court Overturns Campaign Finance Law
And that's just two examples. There are more.
That's the severability issue, and you're right about the implications. It was also noted by the Court that Congress had a severability clause in Obamacare and then specifically threw it out. So it's not likely that it will be acknowledged as acting. Which means when the individual mandate goes, all of Obamacaer goes with it (which would be true financially even with severability, but the Court will just strike the whole thing outright).
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