Posted on 03/29/2012 1:50:01 PM PDT by Sybeck1
A handful of Senate Democrats sought to assure doubtful liberals that the Supreme Court justices aren’t ready to strike down their crowning achievement, standing before cameras and mics Wednesday in front of the court. One warned that doing so would ruin the court’s credibility.
“This court would not only have to stretch, it would have to abandon and completely overrule a lot of modern precedent, which would do grave damage to this court, in its credibility and power,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D), a former attorney general of Connecticut. “The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said the law has been thoroughly vetted.
“As a senior member of the Finance Committee,” he said, “I can tell you that we had one of the most rigorous and transparent legislative processes that I have witnessed in almost 3 decades here in the Congress. We worked with some of the brightest, most thoughtful and experienced constitutional lawyers in order to make sure that the law was constitutional.”
Kerry said the assumptions that tough questions from the justices will amount to striking down some or all of the Affordable Care Act are a fallacy — he predicted, as the final oral arguments were transpiring inside, that it would be upheld.
“Now I am glad — as I think any of us who’ve practiced law are — to see the intense questions from the justices. They’re engaged, and they are thoughtfully working through these issues,” Kerry said. “But questions are a legitimate way of probing the basis of their own thinking. They are not an indication of a judgment made, or a vote ready to be cast. They’re working through this process as they ought to, mindful of the fact that 30 courts below them have already made a judgment upholding it.”
Blumenthal and Kerry — who were joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — called the press conference one day after liberals and other court watchers expressed serious doubts that the justices would uphold the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to purchase insurance, a central pillar of the law. The firestorm was ignited by legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who called Tuesday’s arguments a “train wreck” for the White House and predicted that “Obamacare” would be struck down.
Pushing back, Blumenthal said that there’s a “heavy burden” on the challengers.
“Everybody learns in the first year of law school that the law that’s challenged is presumed to be constitutional,” Blumenthal said. “That is a heavy burden for anyone challenging the constitutionality of a law to overcome. When in doubt, uphold the law. There is a lot of room for doubt here, and there is a lot of clear precedent that requires this court to uphold this law.”
The Democrats’ level of confidence has diminished since the days when they dismissed a constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act as frivolous. Indeed, the tough questioning from swing Justices John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy about the limits of federal power at least rattled liberals enough to require the nerve-soothing press conference. But Democrats are seeking to quell liberal fears that the game is already over.
Experts say it’s too difficult to predict how the court will rule.
Affordable Care Act, HCR/SCOTUS, Supreme Court
There was the Warren Court.
Now these idiot Dems have given us the WAR ON COURT.
“Do liberals really think this way?”
Socialists think that way, yep. This was the famous joke of Joseph Stalin on being informed that the Allied cause was supported by the Pope. “How may battalions does the Pope have?”
I’ll bet ol’ obama is wishing that he hadn’t pissed the scrotums off in his state of the union address. Payback is a bitch and now it’s getting paid back...
.
Sounds like Blumenthal is paraphrasing Stalin when he asked; "How many divisions does the Pope have?"
They pretty much just threatened the Supreme Court.
Who are they to talk about credibility, anyway?
Are they going to 'Breitbart' them? Maybe have Black Panthers put out 'Wanted - Dead or Alive" posters - with big rewards?
Or threaten their parents and families?
Or stick the 'oh so biased New York Times and Washington Post on them?
Spooooo many ways to be thuggy - so little time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFOmUXR080
“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”.....Andrew Jackson(D)..........
Sounds like one here too. Sounds like they are threatening to ignore the ruling.
The biggest detriment to the bill is in the one justice who asked why they should be the ones to go through the 2700 page bill and pick-and-choose what to keep and what to throw out.
That would seem to indicate that the justices don’t want that task.
[I hope they declare it, in its entirety, unconstitutional. Send it back to Congress. Let Nancy read it and find out what is in it.]
Remember that the Constitution is an impediment to these people. They want it to be replaced with something more to their liking - like the Canadian Charter of Rights. The Charter is a very nice document all of whose clauses and codicils are utterly negated by the ‘notwithstanding clause’.
In short: Canadians have rights except when those rights are inconvenient to their rulers.
Obama and his crowd like things like that.
Let me get home and get a glass of wine before I tackle that.
Dude! The Senate dropped their own legislation and picked up the House version lock, stock and barrel without debate and passed it using a technicality. What rigor was involved here?
I’m not going to hold my breath. Kennedy appears to be reasonable, but I’m not going to count on him. I don’t want to get my hopes up to have them dashed. I’ll wait for the ruling.
I think you’ve nailed it.
Wow. That's quite a statement. “As a senior member of the Finance Committee,” he said, “I can tell you that we had one of the most rigorous and transparent legislative processes that I have witnessed in almost 3 decades here in the Congress. We worked with some of the brightest, most thoughtful and experienced constitutional lawyers in order to make sure that the law was constitutional.”
Yeah, that's what was being reported during the whole process. Nothing but "transparency" the whole way.
I have always believed that liberals are so determined to get their way that they are willing to risk civil war to do so. I don’t know what the issue will be (maybe it’s this one) but one day it will happen. They are NOT going to allow rule of law, the constitution, will of the people, or any of that to keep them from getting what they want.
As far as I’m concerned, they can start now. Let it happen while I’m still young enough to carry a gun and fight. I would hate to see it start when I’m in my late 70s or 80s and unable to do my part.
Well then from their view the Court already trashed it’s credibility two years ago with Citizens United.
So who cares?
The SCOTUS was absolutely sacrosanct in the eyes of leftists during all those years it returned liberal decision after liberal decision. Now that they’re facing a possible significant loss, the Left is threatening it with quotes from Joseph Stalin: “How many divisions has the SCOTUS? Not enough to prevent us kicking their butts if they rule against us.”
The 4 liberal judges don’t need marching orders from the Libs in Congress ,, they never had any intentions of killing 0bamaScare .
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