Posted on 09/17/2012 3:36:25 PM PDT by WilliamIII
They're baaack.
You probably thought that once the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act last June, the Act's constitutionality would be settled.
Not a chance.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law firm, has opened up a new front in conservatives' never-ending struggle to wipe Obamacare off the books. Their secret weapon? The Origination Clause of Article I, section 7, which states that "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." The key idea is that the Supreme Court recently upheld the individual mandate as a tax. But if the mandate is a tax, the PLF argues, then it is a bill for raising revenue. That means that the Affordable Care Act must have begun in the House of Representatives. And it did not.
The House passed a version of health care reform on November 7, 2009, and sent it to the Senate. Senators wanted to produce their own bill. The Origination Clause, however, requires that all bills for raising revenue must begin in the House, and health care reform included many new taxes, including the individual mandate. So the Senate amended another tax bill that the House had recently passed: H.R. 3590, which changed the taxation rules for servicemen and women buying new homes. It struck out the text of the existing bill, and inserted its new proposal as an amendment. This procedural maneuver is called using a "shell bill." This version of health care reform passed the Senate 60-39 on December 24, 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Roberts got bullied by the Left. Period. End of story. You did read where the other 4 conservative justices sat Roberts down and asked him to explain his ruling....and he could not ? Did you notice the disgust in justice Kennedy’s face at the final hearing on Obamacare ? Get over this nonsense, please.
Great post! I think by the comments the article was not read in its entirety.
The limp wristed Establishment is hardly known for making a damn thing an “issue”, which is required for this to get to the Supreme Court, which otherwise can’t be looking forward to another round on this subject.
Waiting and watching, ad usual.
Thank you.
I believe Ryan will try.
But VP’s are pretty well known to have little power unless there is a tie.
Precisely. I have always thought that this was the weakest link in the legal gymnastics they used to pass the monster. If the mainstream media was a genuine and ethical industry and reported this properly, there would have been an country-wide, thunderous uproar that should have stopped it then and there.
You're not a poker player are you? Just a hint, don't start because you'll lose the shirt off your back. Bluff, dodge, small ante, raise a bit, and see who'll go all in... Then you slam the door. The Obama administration cannot go back and say this isn't a tax now. And while the likes of Pelosi and Reid are patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves, they're about to get their heads handed to them. This is all predicated on how well the Pacific Legal Foundation gets its legal briefs together.
The supreme court isnt to play politics. It is there to defend the constitution.
Roberts violated his oath.
The greatest bluff in history.....sure it is.
This way, he gets to keep his children, and the threats that made him change his vote do not need to happen.
Roberts being the smart ass that he is may have deliberately have ruled the way he did, calling it a “tax”, knowing this would be a problem for Obama.
Forget about it. The best course of action is to avoid the Supreme Court of the USA with any and all important issues because conservatives will only lose there.
You've got Alito, Thomas, and Scalia as the defenders of the constitution. Roberts and Kennedy in the squishy moldable (buyable) middle, and four rock solid votes against the US Constitution even being a viable document.
We should impeach all nine of these people before we feel forced to do something that would really be rude to them.
We are reduced to begging for our rights for that is all we are doing here with this legal challenge before the Federal employees.
The 9 hand picked Federal employees are as a body corrupt oligarchs selected for the propose of serving Washington and that is exactly what Traitor John did with his edict. There is nether logic nor justice in that building only tyranny.
Beg all you like, but never forget that is all you are now doing, begging for a return of just a few of God given rights Washington has usurped from us.
Exercise in futility, the court will just rule that they are free to break the rules if they want to. Color me resigned.
Thanks for you Optimism, but, our great great grandchildren are $16 Trillion in debt now.
The “system” not having enough money isn’t going to stop them in any way shape or form.
They’ll simply Officially devalue the currency like the South American Banana Republics do to make it Official that America is now THEIR Banana Republic.
He went too far.
The courts role here was only to decide if the law AS IT WAS WRITTEN was Constitutional.
The role was not to re-write the law, or say “Well, it’s ok if you move this here or call this that...” or to give legislators ideas about how to improve/fine tune it.
I don’t think that whether or not it could be called a tax was even part of the appeal from the 11th circuit...
“total violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
You’re correct. Equal Protection arguments also include the 5th’s Due Process of Law clause which is completely missing from Robert’s decree.
Roberts and the others can wash it through as many precedents as they want, but Congress is NOT empowered to Tax the Inaction of Citizens failing to enter the stream of Private Sector, Legal Commerce.
Both Procedural and Substantive Due Process are completely Missing from Roberts Decree.
Substantive because of Equal Protection and Procedural on a Host of Substantive Outcome issues (including the waivers) being swept aside/ignored BY the Court which doesn’t possess the authority to ignore them.
If Roberts pulled this stunt Knowingly to Anger enough Americans to vote Zero and his crowd Out in Nov, even though no one will ever Prove Roberts intended it, that’s one Whopper of an abuse of Process on his part which we All could have done without.
Roberts knew better. They All knew better. And this would have been Far better for All of us if they’d just Done what they’re Seated to do which is uphold the Constitution, NOT Politic it with Roberts possibly scheming to get the electorate woken up through his abuse of his Office.
And how many will die?
People will not work for Weimar marks, Zimbabwe dollars or 0bama dollars. So, devalued currency will not purchase quality healthcare. You pretend to pay, we will pretend to work.
If he did, then he quite apparently over-estimated the people in translating that to restructuring the Congress. Hell, nobody has been that up in arms about the procedure in which CommieCare was passed in the first place. Nor is it within the scope of the courts to play political games with the law. That he felt within his latitude to do so is most concerning with regard to what else he might do in the coming years.
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