Jamelle's hot-off-the-presses cover story on how Romney will govern as a hardcore right-winger irrespective of what he "really" thinks is a must-read. And what's even worse is that this lesson applies beyond budget policy. To address one particularly important point, consider the Supreme Court.
A principled governor invoking “state’s rights” to defy federal policy. Aggressive local officials overriding state decisions. A federal court angrily affirming its own power. An anguished dissent attacking a power-hungry Congress.
One of the many striking things about the Supreme Court's infamous Citizens United decision is how poorly the facts of the case fit the extremely sweeping holding. The potential First Amendment issues involved with campaign finance regulation exist on a spectrum. Political editorials, even when published in corporate-owned media and attempting to influence the campaign, are obviously "pure speech" that can be restricted only in extraordinary circumstances. Direct donations to candidates, on the other hand, are further removed from pure speech and also raise serious problems of democratic equality, so the leeway that can be given to government to restrict them might be greater.
Jon Rauch has an imaginary dialogued with the late Ted Kennedy in which he argues that a Supreme Court decision striking down the Affordable Care Act (a k a the PPACA) might actually be good for liberals. "If the Supreme Court guts another important law and conservatives cheer even louder," Rauch argues, "their credibility as advocates of [judicial] restraint will be shot.” And, in addition, striking down the PPACA would put us on the path to national health insurance. Perhaps, then, striking down the PPACA is something that progressives should secretly wish for?
“Before you get into what the case is about,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Solicitor General Donald Verilli at the beginning of the government’s argument in United States v. Arizona, “I’d like to clear up at the outset what it’s not about. No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it? I saw none of that in your brief.”
A non-lawyer might be puzzled. The case, argued Wednesday, is testing the constitutionality of part of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, a statute that seeks to drive undocumented immigrants out of the state by rigid law enforcement.
Ronald Dworkin has an article defending the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the New York Review of Books that offers an excellent primer on the relevant issues. There are two sections I'd recommend in particular. First, in Section II Dworkin does the most lucid job I've seen so far in explaining why the "activity/inactivity" distinction made by the challengers is so weak:
This term’s last oral argument ends next week with yet another blockbuster case—Arizona v. United States, the challenge to Arizona’s harshly anti-immigrant S.B. 1070. This case poses vitally important questions about individual rights, racial profiling, and the future of individual equality in the United States.
But don’t expect to hear them argued openly next week.
I've argued that the legal arguments against the Affordable Care Act are just libertarianism in a thin disguise—the arguments fundamentally make very little sense unless they're part of a broader argument about the unconstitutionality of the welfare state. Janice Rogers Brown, the ultra-reactionary appointed by George W. Bush to the prestigious D.C. Circuit Court of appeals, doesn't see any need for the disguise.
Orin Kerr outlines a five-part test for whether a decision can be called "judicial activism" as a means of assessing whether the label could be fairly applied to a decision striking down the Affordable Care Act. Roughly, the criteria are: 1) whether the decision was motivated by the policy preferences of judges; 2) whether it expands judicial power for future cases; 3) whether it was inconsistent with past precedents; 4) whether it struck down a "law or practice"; and 5) whether the decision was "wrong." On three of the first four criteria, Kerr essentially agrees that a decision striking down the ACA would be "activist." On points No. 3 and No.
The right’s outrage over Obama’s comments on the Supreme Court are hypocritical. All Obama said was the truth: It would, indeed, be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare, signifying a new interpretation of the powers granted to Congress under current Commerce Clause precedent. The president in no way insinuated that he would ignore the ruling, a fact verified by Attorney General Eric Holder in response to an outlandish request by a Reagan appointee on the Fifth Circuit. It was, however, somewhat disheartening to see Obama questioning the court by terming them an “unelected group of people,” as that legitimizes language typically employed by conservatives anytime the courts read the Constitution as protecting some form of social equality.
Last night while I was asleep, highly placed sources whom I cannot identify (because they don’t exist) assured me that Attorney General Eric Holder originally wrote this first draft of a letter he was ordered to submit to Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit. The final letter has quite a different tone. But those of us who cherish the rule of law can dream that he might have actually sent Judge Smith the following instead.
Judge Jerry E. Smith Circuit Judge Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, searches and seizures must be "reasonable." Albert Florence was subjected to an invasive search—including an inspection of his genitals—after being detained following a routine traffic stop for an outstanding arrest warrant (that turned out to be invalid) before being moved to a correctional facility. The state had no evidence that he was carrying any dangerous contraband. Not only did it not have a warrant, not only did it not have the probable cause that would have been necessary for a warrant, it had no individualized suspicion at all. Florence had no reason to believe he would be arrested, and hence no reason to have weapons hidden in his body cavities. Surely such an intrusive search under these circumstances is "unreasonable," right?
Given the hostility the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court showed to the Affordable Care Act during oral arguments this week, some progressives are seeking a silver lining. At least, some have argued, striking down the ACA would substantially undermine the legitimacy of the conservative-dominated federal courts.
Nobody was doing well by the time oral arguments in the Health Care cases ended at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. Some Justices were sniping back and forth. The lawyers were showing the strain.
And Justice Antonin Scalia was telling jokes.
“[Y]ou know—the old Jack Benny thing, Your Money or Your Life, and, you know, he says ‘I'm thinking, I'm thinking,’” Scalia said from the bench. “It's—it's funny, because it's no choice. ... But ‘your life or your wife’s,’ I could refuse that.”
“He’s not going home tonight,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor threw in as the crowd laughed.
