…in the Supreme Court. The issue here isn’t constitutionality per se, but severability. As it says, the Department of Justice (particularly one as corrupt and incompetent as this one) has its work cut out.
7 thoughts on “ObamaCare Has Arrived”
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If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case (by no means a given, especially in an election year), it won’t be under the Department of Justice (part of the Executive Branch) but under the Judicial Branch of the government.
It doesn’t have a lot of choice, when there are conflicting rulings by different circuits. It has to resolve it, and soon. My point was that the DoJ will be up against a tough team of lawyers in arguing it (not to mention they have no legal case).
It wouldn’t surprise me if the SC decides to wait until after the election to hear the case.
Since the Constitution only means what 5 SC justices say it means, it’s hard to predict the outcome.
Would not surprise me at all if Obama wanted this to take place during an election year as a way to make SCOTUS an issue and to distract from the economy.
I think the theory that makes the most sense is that they want it to come before the Supreme Court while they’re still in office and can argue for it, fearing that if they lose the election, the new administration won’t defend it, as the Obama administration didn’t with DOMA, and Obama’s legacy “achievement” will be gone.
The Supreme Court might issue a ruling on severability, then send the issue back to the lower courts. The Obami may want to keep the issue undecided until after the election so they have an issu to rally the faithfull. They know that a Republican administration will not defend Obamacare and would actively work for repeal. If Republicans repeal Obamacare it becomes a partisan political act, not a question of constitutionality.
I think Obama wants this off the table till after the election because losing one of the few real legislative efforts he’s made would destroy his campaign. A bad economy or a weak foreign policy still leaves a bit of hope. But I see two ways an adverse court ruling would end those hopes altogether. First, it drives home that he spent a vast amount of time and political capital on crap law. That’s a huge display of massive incompetence.
Second, his remaining supporters couldn’t rationalize their way out of this (as, for example, they have for years on Transterrestrial), claiming that these various abuses were in fact Constitutional. The simple rebuttal would be that the US Supreme Court disagrees. In other words, the huge display of massive incompetence can’t be hidden or rationalized.