After watching Republicans scream “Activist Judge” every time a ruling they don’t like is issued, while also doing everything they could to pack the courts with activists and, if you remember the Schiavo case, smearing good Judges like Judge Greer when they didn’t engage in activism they liked, it is nice to see this from the White House:
Today, a judge in Florida issued a decision in a case filed by 25 Republican Attorneys General and Governors striking down the Affordable Care Act. This ruling is well out of the mainstream of judicial opinion. Twelve federal judges have already dismissed challenges to the constitutionality of the health reform law, and two judges â in the Eastern District of Michigan and Western District of Virginia â have upheld the law. In one other case, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a very narrow ruling on the constitutionality of the health reform lawâs âindividual responsibilityâ provision and upheld the rest of the law.
Todayâs ruling â issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida â is a plain case of judicial overreaching. The judgeâs decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government that the Actâs âindividual responsibilityâ provision is necessary to prevent billions of dollars of cost-shifting every year by individuals without insurance who cannot pay for the health care they obtain. And the judge declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the âindividual responsibilityâ provision. This decision is at odds with decades of established Supreme Court law, which has consistently found that courts have a constitutional obligation to preserve as a much of a statute as can be preserved. As a result, the judgeâs decision puts all of the new benefits, cost savings and patient protections that were included in the law at risk.
Under todayâs view of the law, seniors will pay higher prices for their prescription drugs and small businesses will pay higher taxes because small business tax credits would be eliminated. And the new provisions that prevent insurance companies from denying, capping or limiting your care would be wiped away.
We donât believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld and we are confident that the Affordable Care Act will ultimately be declared constitutional by the courts.
Vinson’s ruling was clear judicial activism. It is nice to see it be called that by people in positions of authority.
Violet
Yay! Clear language and calling them out! Glad to see this from the White House.
Let’s continue the trend by replacing all use of the phrase “pro life” with the phrase “forced birth” when discussing abortion.
Call it what it is.
Martin
Wingnuts: How can he be activist? He did what we wanted!
homerhk
But I am constantly told that the White House and Obama don’t defend Healthcare, and don’t stand up to Republicans. I am confused (about so many things).
Seriously, this was as far as I can see a terrible judgment and will be easily picked apart by a higher court.
Ash Can
There goes that Constitutional law professor in the White House, gettin’ all
uppityperfessor-y.El Cid
Surely Samuel Alito is shaking his head and mouthing “No, no”.
JPL
Personally I don’t think the Roberts court cares about the rule of law, precedent and the Constitution.
General Stuck
Herein lies what this judge and any judge, up to and including the SCOTUS will have to overcome. The requirement for indigent treatment, or those without health insurance and unable to pay, mostly comes out of the US Treasury general fund in the form of grants and subsidies to private hospitals in every state. It is what should seal the deal for commerce clause purposes, and is actually more clear than most CC invocations by congress. Four of the five wingnut SCOTUS judges simply do not care, I suspect, and will make a political decision to overturn the ACA. Who knows what Kennedy will do?
I’m not a lawyer, but have a long history of lodging at Holiday Inns/
dricey
Maybe we, and the WH, should start identifying people like Vinson, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito, as “Republican judges” in our public discussions of their blatantly ideological decisions.
The Dangerman
So, the Right has hitched their bitch to the mandate; makes you wonder what their bitch would be if there was no mandate. You know they’d be bitching about something.
Curiously, the timing of the USSC could make it such that the case is decided sometime shortly prior to 11/2012. THAT should be fascinating.
Walker
@JPL:
This is certainly true of both Roberts and Alito, who are hacks. However, as odius as Scalia is, I am not sure this would get past him.
Maude
@Ash Can:
It is interesting the the executive branch weighed in on this.
That’s two branches of government for ACA. The Congress passed the law and the President is standing firm on it.
This puts the Supremes out there on their own.
Anniecat45
This is a really funny ruling from Florida, one of several states that REQUIRE people to buy car insurance. If it can be required for cars, why not for people?
Dave
@Walker: I think Scalia has actually talked about the mandate as passing constitutional muster, IIRC. But this was when Republicans thought it was a grand idea.
Bulworth
I expect the next Broder column will lament the much lamentable mean partisanship displayed here by the president.
New Yorker
@JPL:
Yup. A lasting legacy of the Bush administration are the two hack he put on the court. God, I hope Anthony Kennedy has one of his moments of clarity if healthcare reform ever reaches the Supreme Court.
Martin
@General Stuck:
They don’t have to overcome it. They’re perfectly capable of just ignoring the icky bits.
Bulworth
Death panels.
I don’t recall the mandate portion being all that controversial during our summer of raging townhall meetings. Concern about the mandate is mostly a late, post-hoc development
cleek
@Anniecat45:
1. because you’re not required to buy auto insurance by the federal govt. states can mandate things the federal govt can’t.
2. because you only have to buy auto insurance (if your state requires it) if you own a car (which is not required anywhere).
The Dangerman
@Bulworth:
Perhaps, but then their tactics would have to change, no? One can’t challenge the constitutionality of death panels if there are no death panels.
Violet
@Anniecat45:
Please see yesterday’s thread for a thorough dissection of this issue.
Punchy
Scalia (and Thomas) already firmly in the gunna overturn this, bitch! camp.
The only judge that matters is, per usual, Kennedy.
eemom
more judicial prognosticating from people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
It’s a good thing there are relatively few topics *I* know much about, or I might conclude that ignorant bloviating accounts for most of what goes on here.
drkrick
You significantly underestimate the “creativity” (i.e., howling dishonesty) of the 28%’ers pulling the strings of the GOP these days.
EDIT: Or the gullibility, as the case may be.
Elizabelle
OT, but I was surprised to see that King Abdullah of Jordan has now dismissed his cabinet.
The Dangerman
@drkrick:
Sadly, too true; it qualifies as a surprise the those 28%’s have been surprisingly quiet over the response to Egypt.
eemom
@Punchy:
Wrong.
From your link:
See that? Seven justices — ALL but the two most extreme — refused to even HEAR a case that challenged the reach of the commerce clause.
How many of you armchair legal scholars even knows what a petition for certiorari is?
The Dangerman
@eemom:
Can they go that route given we have dueling decisions at the lower circuits?
eemom
@The Dangerman:
We don’t have dueling decisions at lower circuits. We have a bunch of district court opinions that haven’t been appealed yet.
AFTER the various courts of appeals decide these cases, IF there is disagreement among them — which is itself a big IF given how radical this “unconstitutional” shit is — then, yes, a split among the circuits would make it likely for the SCt to grant cert.
eric
@The Dangerman: First, you would need disparate Appellate Court decisions. We do not have even one yet. If you have even one that says unconstitutional, they will have to take it because that Appellate Court is the law of the land for the jurisdictions it covers, such that you could have an administrative mess.
So, if no Appellate Court sides with unconstitutional, the likelihood of cert being granted drops, but not to zero because it only takes five (i think, too lazy to google).
piratedan
@The Dangerman: I thought that they were using the mandate to be tied in with their “job-killing” assertion that an additional 16K worth of IRS jobs would have to be added to the federal payroll to enforce the mandate. You know it’s the Republican math – adding 16K in IRS jobs is a job killer, CBO estimated savings of 143B is defecit expansion. I’m now awaiting Republican food flavorings where you have salted doughnuts and sour ice cream. It should be an Ad agencies dream to get that lucrative account.
fasteddie9318
I’ll be honest; the vindictive part of me is hoping the Supremes rule the ACA unconstitutional and then are inundated with lawsuits regarding every piece of 20th century legislation passed involving the commerce clause. And then they can declare all of those unconstitutional as well. Let’s see how long this society can function with no New Deal, no welfare, no Great Society programs, and no Civil Rights protections. Not too long, I bet.
FormerSwingVoter
The thing is, what’s so special about the individual “mandate”? So you pay $600 more in taxes if you don’t have insurance. I pay $1,000 more in taxes for not having a kid (missing out on the child tax credit), yet I’ve never heard anyone hysterically scream about the Child Mandate, and how the government is forcing people to have as many children as possible.
The Dangerman
@eemom:
I guess I was assuming that there would be a least one appeals court decision that would force the USSC to take it; if all the appeals shoot this shit down and the USSC doesn’t take it up, the Right is going to really lose their shit. Ah, too bad.
General Stuck
@eemom:
Well, of course you are correct. But If there was not prognostic bloviating on blogs, who would take up the slack in that department? And I don’t think it is out of bounds to question the judicial sincerity of five sc justices who have recently equated money with speech and overturned decades of legislation they promised they would be unlikely to do in their confirmation hearings. And CU is not the only precedent shit kicking these wingnuts have conducted lately. We are in a war of ideology, me thinks. Old rules no longer fully apply, and judges are not exempt from soldiering for their cause. imho.
eemom
@eric:
it will be fairly hilarious if every one of the Circuits to which this thing is appealed overturns the finding of unconstitutionality, and the whole sturm und drang just fizzles out and dies without a word from the “Supremes” except “certiorari denied.”
catclub
@eemom: I resemble that comment!
catclub
@fasteddie9318: You seem to think they would be consistent. It is almost as if you are taking them at their word that ‘Bush vs Gore was a one-off and don’t quote us on that. Except for that we will be consistent.’
They were perfectly happy putting the boot on state’s rights when they knocked down medical marijuana in California. They could be just as happy to support states rights on other cases they liked.
numbskull
@eemom: Don’t have many friends, do ya, Francis?
I don’t think you understand how this blogging thing works. Please go study that and get back to us. Or not.
Martin
@cleek:
I don’t think this has been established anywhere. I think it’s been proven that states can mandate, but just because it hasn’t been proven that the feds can mandate, doesn’t mean that they cannot.
Cris
David Brooks?
eemom
@numbskull:
there’s a difference between blogging and glorified ignorance, O Aptly Named One. Or at least there should be.
Caz
Please show me what part of Judge Vinson’s decision is “judicial activism.” I’ve read the decision, and it is very well-reasoned and relies on Constitutional precedent and analysis, unlike the judges that have upheld the law (which discussed merely policy considerations).
So, show me where Judge Vinson “overreached.” There isn’t one shred of judicial activism or overreaching in his opinion, and I challenge you to show me otherwise.
It almost seems like you and the author of the article you excerpted didn’t even bother to read the opinion.
liberal
@FormerSwingVoter:
The point is that it’s not a tax.
liberal
@eric:
I think it takes four to grant cert, but I’m not sure.
debbie
@Maude:
I seem to recall a recent interview with the retired Stevens who pointed out that in cases like that, the Court would automatically defer. I can’t see Scalia doing that, can you?
Wile E. Quixote
@Caz:
You didn’t read the decision you lying sack of shit, and I doubt that you know the first thing about constitutional precedent. Of course you’re not the only ignorant bastard of a conservative out there, there’s also Antonin Scalia, the dumb bastard who thinks that Jack Bauer is a real person and that his actions on 24 provide a relevant guide for federal agents.
FormerSwingVoter
@liberal:
It’s done through the tax code. If you don’t have health insurance, your tax liability come April is increased by $600. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
Catsy
@Caz:
For starters, your homework for today is to go read this, this, and this.
That you can write this in all apparent seriousness reveals that you are either lying about having read the decision, or incompetent to discuss it from any position more sophisticated than a barstool.
Get back to us once you’ve read and understood the various areas of overreach, bench legislation, and outright errors of logic and fact that exist in this opinion.
R. Johnston
Vinson’s decision is better characterized as “bad faith” than as “judicial activism.” In finding the mandate non severable, he inherently found that the mandate is a *necessary* part of the entire legislative scheme to regulate insurance. However, that quite clearly means that his analysis of the mandate under the Commerce Clause is not just bad analysis but rather entirely irrelevant, because unless there’s a specific Constitutional clause violated by the mandate, the fact that it’s *necessary* to an otherwise Constitutional legislative scheme validates the mandate under the Necessary and Proper clause and it matters not even the tiniest little bit whether or not the Commerce Clause would be sufficient to justify the mandate in isolation from the remainder of the legislation.
If this decision were a Constitutional Law final, Vinson would have failed and been placed on academic probation. Judges must have a better knowledge of the Constitution than that, and if Vinson really believes in his decision that’s indicative of a degree of ignorance of the law worthy of impeachment.
On the other hand, if Vinson deliberately wrote an opinion he knows to be balderdash, that’s bad faith of the sort that should get him impeached.
Somehow, however, I doubt the Republican House will hold the hearings that are its Constitutional duty when a judge acts with such ignorance of the law or bad faith.
sparky
i confess i am rather surprised to see the tenor of the postings about this opinion. for a crowd that crows about its rationality, it’s not demonstrating it here. Commerce clause jurisprudence is not settled, despite assertions to the contrary. there is an outer limit to the reach of the CC; if that were not so, then Congress would have essentially unlimited power and the states would be nullities.*
now, people can disagree about the line drawing inherent in determining the extent of the CC, but to do that you must engage with the opinion. it certainly is possible to argue that Vinson drew the line in the wrong place, (and incorrectly applied the law). but making that argument requires a bit more than citing to pundits and ad hominem claims.
shorter me: if you think the opinion is incorrect, then explain why.
*i don’t have a feel for how this would play out in the Supreme Court. the Court has only shown any departure from post 1930s cases where the statute lacked any substantive nexus to CC power. this case presents a different issue–one can accept the nexus argument but still find this is not a valid use of CC power on the ground that it is not commercial activity. that said, i have always thought this legislation was a horrible idea, and the framework supporting a crazy system is, IMO, vulnerable on this point.
as for the severability argument, i find it most interesting that someone “forgot” to put this rather standard clause in the legislation.