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John Roberts' One Question on ObamaCare May Be Huge (Next president could reinterpret)
http://www.newser.com/story/203603/john-roberts-one-question-on-obamacare-may-be-huge.html ^

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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aca; robertscourt; scotus
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

That must be some HOT video the left has on CJ Roberts...


61 posted on 03/05/2015 12:54:36 PM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2016; I pray we make it that long.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
More pretzel logic from Souter Roberts.
62 posted on 03/05/2015 12:59:43 PM PST by Sans-Culotte (Psalm 14:1 ~ The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)
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To: Uncle Miltie

“President Cruz’s first act should be to revoke ALL of 0bama’s Executive Orders.”

Only Democrats seem to have the balls to clean house and bash the previous administration when they get in power.


63 posted on 03/05/2015 1:01:28 PM PST by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: stephenjohnbanker
It is very bad. Any reasoning along these lines guts the Constitution and ends the principle of separation of powers. All effective power would be vested in the President, and Congress and the Courts are either fig leaves or rubber stamps (choice of metaphor is up to you). In any event, an opinion based on this reasoning means and end to the Rule of Law.

Well, actually the Rule of Law ended with Wickard v. Filburn. National Associaion of Manufacturer's v. Sebelius was it's post-mortem, and King v. Burwell is the headstone.

64 posted on 03/05/2015 1:04:41 PM PST by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: tbw2

“A “the law is whatever the President wants to enforce”

That’s not how a country is run. That’s how a concentration camp is run.


65 posted on 03/05/2015 1:14:36 PM PST by IMR 4350
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To: EDINVA
You can make the argument that Supreme Court decisions have always been subject to politics.

Marbury v. Madison was an adroit high-wire political act that assumed the power of judicial review, but pulled a surprise switch at the end of the opinion in favor of the prevailing political party to preserve the power the Court had just appropriated to itself.

Dred Scott v. Sanford was an abomination of legal reasoning, but was intended to achieve the political goal of deciding the slavery issue once and for all. Ironically, it did more to foment the Civil War it was intended to prevent.

The Slaughterhouse Cases and Lochner v. New York were judicial codification of prevailing government/private industry economic policies not really rooted in Constitutional doctrine, and while the Slaughterhouse Cases have been eroded by the expansion of the Due Process Clauses, it completely gutted a clause of the Constitution that was intended to have legal effect, but now has none.

Lochner was abandoned as politically inexpedient when Justice Roberts completely changed years of personal judicial philosophy to side with FDR's "New Deal" in West Coast Hotel. He was clearly responding to the political pressure of FDR's "court packing scheme," not merely a matter of "judicial evolution."

United States v. Nixon was the last time the Court spoke as a Court, a unanimous 8-0 opinion, on a matter of Executive Authority. It was a case that needed a unanimous opinion, and we got one. Since then, the appointment process has become a political battleground, mostly driven by the Court's own decision in Roe v. Wade, another abomination of judicial reasoning and Constitutional interpretation. Because of that, what were once deferential appointments have become the bitter bone of contention between left and right in the U.S. Senate.

The result has become a highly polarized and politicized Court. The greatest example of this was Bush v. Gore,. This may have been the most important case the Court has decided in the past 50 years, for the reason that in effect, the Supreme Court of the United States selected the President. It was a case that begged for a unanimous decision, and in order to heal political divisiveness the country needed a unanimous decision. Instead, it was a very predictable 5-4 vote. Because it was a narrow vote on partisan lines, the left will always claim it was political. It was the right decision, but it's value was lost because it was also a political one.

The Court continues to be a political battleground today. Both political parties are hovering like vultures over the not-yet carcass of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wondering whether she will be replaced by Eric Holder, or whether a Republican might instead appoint a real jurist.

I see no end in sight, and the political analysis has done much to damage the Court's credibility as a neutral and objective arbiter of the law.

66 posted on 03/05/2015 1:32:57 PM PST by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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To: henkster

A FReeper yesterday described the SCOTUS as only 5 Justices (four of nine are so dependably liberal such that everybody can forecast their vote on every case, AKA deadheads), with the 1 dissenter of the remaining 5 deciding the outcome of any case which is burdened with the mere whiff of politics.


67 posted on 03/05/2015 2:24:22 PM PST by txhurl
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

If Roberts had done his job in the first place this discussion would not have been necessary.


68 posted on 03/05/2015 4:25:11 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: RGF
Wonderful, so we have no law, simply what the next king thinks the law should be.

The Justices were talking about the Chevron case, a Supreme Court decision from 1984. Chevron says that if a statute is clear and unambiguous, the courts must enforce it as written, but if the statute is ambiguous, the courts must defer to administrative regulations construing the statute, so long as the regulation is "reasonable," even if the court thinks the administrative interpretation is not the most reasonable one, and even if the administrative agency changes its interpretation from a prior interpretation. (I'm not a big fan of the Chevron rule, but it's been repeatedly reaffirmed by SCOTUS over the past 20 years.)

69 posted on 03/05/2015 4:37:29 PM PST by Lurking Libertarian (Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“In other words, the future of ObamaCare should be up to the voters, not the justices.”


He’s coy.


70 posted on 03/05/2015 5:11:52 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: treetopsandroofs

Read the history of Ted Cruz.


71 posted on 03/05/2015 7:44:11 PM PST by X-spurt (CRUZ missile - armed and ready.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Of course it would be worth it but we have precious little courage in “leadership” today.


72 posted on 03/05/2015 10:33:57 PM PST by SoCal Pubbie
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To: IMR 4350

Agreed.


73 posted on 03/06/2015 5:59:09 AM PST by tbw2
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