You know, there are several avenues here for John Roberts to correct his earlier screw up, which may be something that he’s willing to embrace. Follow me here.
1. The court already issued on that forgotten bit about the law not being able to be separated out amongst its various pieces. They had a whole day to argue that bit the first time it went to the top court, and the ruling was, if one part fell, the whole law goes with it.
2. This case hinges on a completely separate issue, being that the statute itself was written specifically to say that the Federal Government would not have permission to subsidize the exchanges. It is a statutory issue, not a Constitutional one at all.
3. The court will almost always ignore dealing with Constitutional questions if a case can be decided or solved via the statutory issues already dealt with. (See Scalia’s comments about 99.9% of the work done at the Court being Lawyer’s work.)
4. There’s not much wiggle room allowed by the statute itself. In order to come to their decision, the Fourth Circuit had to basically ignore the statute and use the time honored because we want to do it this way due to politics legal test in order to rule the way that they did.
5. This gives Roberts permission to overturn the whole law, while not reversing his puzzling ruling from a couple of years ago. My bet is that he’ll embrace that opportunity. Especially since it’s pretty clear to anyone over the age of 5 that this law is massively destructive to our society.
Flyovercountry on November 7, 2014 at 6:04 PM
I have thought that at some point the destructiveness of the law might get it overturned on some technicality...even by democrats who want to relieve their side of the future burden of this monstrosity. Who really would want to keep defending an obviously broken anything?
Better to start over at some point, but Obama isn’t going to let even his own side escape his veto pin on his ‘signature piece of legislation’. I’ve even wondered if Obama himself wouldn’t be relieved to see it tossed in the trash bin by the judges.
Thanks, Triple E.
FR needs keen minds. I appreciate the help.
Most seem to forget Roberts actually voted with the conservatives on everything but his re-write of the tax issue.
- Commerce Clause can’t be used to justify individual mandate
- Necessary & proper doesn’t justify individual mandate
- limited the Feds power to force states to expand Medicaid
This current case really should be a done deal.
I don’t think he’ll overturn the whole law. Rather he’ll say that the statute has to be interpreted to mean what it says.
This will make obamacare unworkable. It will bleed in the water for a year or two before the pubbies kill it.
5. This gives Roberts permission to overturn the whole law, while not reversing his puzzling ruling from a couple of years ago. My bet is that he’ll embrace that opportunity. Especially since it’s pretty clear to anyone over the age of 5 that this law is massively destructive to our society.The Chicago machine has something on Roberts. My guess is he will magically divine another convoluted bit of logic and "surprise" everyone yet again.
Thank you for the assessment. It may be enough, on top of the democrats political bloodbath of Tuesday to tip things in the favor of the American people. Obama has been diminished in a very real and tangible sense, although it’s easy to see where this could make him far more dangerous due to his mental instability.
No excuse for the court however. Obamas idiot policies need to be completely dismantled and destroyed.