The Court’s morning session concentrated on whether, if the individual mandate is held unconstitutional (as looks increasingly likely after yesterday’s argument), it can be cleanly severed from the rest of ObamaCare, and if not, what other portions of the act must the Court strike down with it. The Court’s afternoon session focused on whether Congress’s conditions on the states to continue to participate in the Medicaid program were constitutionally coercive. The two sessions were largely distinct but had some overlapping aspects. SEVERABILITY In the morning’s arguments about severability, the government …
The packed hearing room of the Supreme Court was a who’s who of lawyers and political leaders this morning, all of whom witnessed what was an undeniably bad day for the Obama Administration and its defense of the President’s health care law. Paul Clement and Michael Carvin, attorneys representing those challenging Obamacare, battled Solicitor General Donald Verrelli, who was defending the law, and urged the Supreme Court to find the individual mandate in ObamaCare unconstitutional. Present in the courtroom were about twelve state attorneys general, including those from Utah, North …
Call it the main event: after a day puzzling over whether Obamacare’s fines on those who don’t buy insurance constitute a tax or a penalty—an important threshold issue, to be sure, but one that hasn’t quite captured the public’s imagination—the Court today will hear oral argument regarding one of the most important issues before it in 65 years: whether the Constitution empowers Congress to require that virtually all Americans purchase or obtain health insurance coverage. The answer to that question will determine whether the federal Leviathan truly remains a government …
The biggest news from the Supreme Court’s oral argument on Obamacare today is that no justice indicated he or she would be troubled reaching the merits of the larger constitutional challenges to the law. The issue today was whether the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) would bar the Court from considering the challenge to the individual mandate in the President’s health care law, and all eight justices who asked questions seemed satisfied that one of several exceptions to the AIA applied, thereby allowing them to hear the other legal issues. The justices’ …
This morning, shortly after 10 am, Chief Justice John Roberts will open oral argument in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida on the issue of whether challenges to ObamaCare’s individual mandate are barred at this time by the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA). The AIA requires individuals challenging most taxes to first pay the tax, seek a refund, and then sue the federal government for denying such a refund—putting off challenges to the mandate until 2015 at the earliest. The Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether the mandate …
Six hours of oral argument will be conducted in four sessions, spread over three days. That’s what the Supreme Court has allocated for the cases challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). The arguments begin Monday, as attorneys representing 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and a few of its individual members square off against U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verilli, Jr. and one of his deputies. Other attorneys appointed by the Supreme Court will join the fray on two issues. …
Later today, The Heritage Foundation (with five other organizations and former Senator George LeMieux) will file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in the Obamacare case that challenges the mandate requiring all individuals to purchase an inflated health insurance policy designed to subsidize other terrible policies in the 2,500-page bill. Heritage previously published a detailed analysis on why the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and that paper is cited in our brief. But since the parties are making the central constitutional arguments, the joint amicus brief the Heritage is joining …
The Obama Administration’s 23-page Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion rationalizing illegal appointments the President made last week, released this morning, falls far short of its intended goal. The opinion makes claims that are demonstrably false and is at times, frankly, embarrassing. Apart from failing to prove that President Obama’s unprecedented act was constitutional, the opinion also raises further questions about the legal advice process and the competence of those involved. The opinion, dealing with the President’s illegal appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Consumer Financial Protection …
In a revelation that is quite shocking to anyone who knows anything about the 100-plus years of precedent on the recess appointment power or the separation of powers, the White House today announced that the President planned on making a purported recess appointment of Richard Cordray to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is a position the Senate has refused to confirm Cordray for, and it is also of note that the White House announced this momentous decision in an official tweet from communications director Dan Pfeiffer. Heritage’s Diane …
Once upon a time, those who favored racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions at least admitted that their goal was to help certain minority applicants who they argued were underrepresented due to a legacy of discrimination and other social ills. This is an appealing and well-meaning goal, even if such government preferences tended to reward a subset of minority students who were not disadvantaged and harm other students who were less well off—and raised a host of other moral and constitutional problems. When the Supreme Court ruled squarely, in …
