Posted on 03/05/2015 11:20:38 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
In yesterday's arguments about ObamaCare before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts surprised observers by saying almost nothing. But the single question he did ask might well have tipped his hand, writes Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker. If Toobin is right, it's a mixture of good and bad news for the White House: Roberts would vote to keep the law in place—but leave the door open for a future president to gut it. Roberts' question came after Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued that under precedent set in a Chevron case, the Obama administration has the flexibility to interpret the health law broadly enough to get around troublesome wording about subsidies at the heart of the case.
“If you’re right about Chevron, that would indicate that a subsequent administration could change that interpretation?” Roberts asked. Verrilli acknowledged it could. This "suggests a route out of the case for Roberts," who is generally opposed to the idea of limiting the power of presidents, writes Toobin. He could provide the swing vote to uphold the law, "with a reminder that a new election is fast approaching"—and a reminder that a new president could re-interpret the law immediately. "In other words, the future of ObamaCare should be up to the voters, not the justices." Click to read the full post.
Q. What do you call a guy who washed out of law school?
A. A mainstream journalist
After my previous rant...here’s my take on it.
The question is more likely setting the stage to say laws can’t be interpreted differently at will. If they can be read that way then the law isn’t clear and must be reworked. Either it’s unconstitutional or they stay the ruling pending congress fixing it within 6 months. This allows subsidies to stay in place this year but then come 1 Jan 2016...Obamacare is gone.
Well it’s gone until Boehner and McConnell pass a fix to it. They could use this as an opportunity to get rid of it, but instead they will tweak it to pay off their cronies and give away more freebies.
They can be put back on Medicaid where they came from.
They always had healthcare but without the heavy hand of federal government foisting a huge tax on the public. This was always about passing a massive tax. And GM wanted to shed all their gold-plated retirement health benefits onto government so Obamacare was born to facilitate that.
Now if the GOPe gets their guy in the Oval Office, then you would be exactly right.
Roberts is in Obama’s hip pocket. They will vote any way he want and do it twice on Sunday. Watch—If Obama wanted to close Congress and rule by decree—they would uphold it as Constutional. The Fix is in—The SS Couty is comprimised. Watch as they let Illegals vote and reparations to all blacks for slavery.
Why? Very simple.
It kind of looks like the SCOTUS wants to avoid it’s responsibility, and force Congress to deal with obamacare.
By putting it off a few more years they just get more people on the subsidies and make it harder to get rid of.
It is really disturbing that the Justices of the Supreme Court seem more interested in politics, the effect of overtrning a law that was a sham to begin with, than they are in interpreting the law as written, and exercising their Constitutional duty.
So if someone gets away with murder, they get away with murder, ya can’t bing the deceased back, right?
Really troublesome. I guess Roberts doesn’t pay attention to off-year elections like ‘10 and ‘14. Just presidential elections where they drag out the dead to vote.
“I say let the full force come down on all of us...then we’ll vote to make changes, and throw the bums out.”
No, they’ll just elect another Marxist that will tax you enough to pay for it!
Somewhat similar to putting up a sign that says “SPEED LIMIT” without any number given.
Each police officer could simply decide what the speed limit is at any given time even change it from one person to the next.
The fact the ACA “law” can be changed from day to day is what makes it unconstitutional.
There is no way anyone knows from day to day what the “law” is.
What you can do one day you can’t the next but you can the day after that.
[[Wonderful, so we have no law, simply what the next king thinks the law should be.]]
and therein lies the insidiousness of Robert’s betrayal to the US (Remember, he made the asinine statement that the supreme court’s job was not to protect the people from their vote)-
The way this country is going, we will In the near future have a PERMANENT liberal president because of all the ‘free stuff’ they promise- including health care- the people will be afraid of electing a conservative thinking that they might lose their ‘free HC’ if a republican takes office and reinterprets the law to suit his agenda-
IF Roberts doesn’t rule correctly, and strike this friggin HC law down NOW- this country is doomed!
President Cruz’s first act should be to revoke ALL of 0bama’s Executive Orders.
There is no way they’re going to harm ACA. Does anyone actually believe a “future president” will dismantle a gargantuan government program affecting millions of people?
Anyone believing this is living in a state of denial.
Like it or not, we’ve got it and it’s permanent.
Let’s play “kick the can” some more.
I’m inclined to agree with you. If each President can interpret laws however he sees fit, even in a way that completely contradicts the explicit wording of the law, then the concepts of laws and being a nation of laws has no meaning.
However given how Roberts twisted himself into a pretzel with contrived and convoluted reasoning to uphold Obamacare, it’s impossible to trust him on the matter and the conclusion must be that he’s looking for an out.
Do it. Day 1. Then you have four years in which people will forget, markets will heal, etc.
Even if it is the last thing a Republican President did, it would totally be worth it.
Just as with Justice Scalia, I hope that Justice Roberts didn’t pay for his Harvard Law School indoctrination out of his own pocket.
Antonin Scalia: Won’t Congress Fix Obamacare?
Both Roberts and Scalia are wrongly ignoring, or were possibly never taught, that previous generations of 10th Amendment-respecting justices had clarified that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate healthcare purposes. The excerpts below from related case opinions, and previously posted in FR, are evidence of this.
Regarding the Obamacare insurance mandate for example, note the fourth entry in the following list, the excerpt from Paul v. Virginia. In that case the Court had essentially clarified that the feds have no Commerce Clause power to regulate insurance regardless if an insurance policy is negotiated across state borders.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.
”4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce [emphasis added] within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract of indemnity against loss.” — Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate insurance.)
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.
Also note that regardless that federal Democrats, RINOs, corrupt justices and institutionally indoctrinated attorneys will argue that if the Constitution doesn’t say that the feds can’t do something then they can do it, the Supreme Court has addressed that foolish idea too. Politically correct interpretations of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause aside, the Court has clarified in broad terms that powers not delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate healthcare in this case, are prohibited to the feds.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
If Justices Roberts and Scalia want Congress to have the constitutional authority that it needs to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate healthcare purposes then they must do the following. They must work with Congress to propose a healthcare amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. And if the states choose to ratify their amendment then Congress will have the constitutional authority that it needs to regulate healthcare and Justices Roberts and Scalia will be heroes.
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