By the way, in hind sight, it would have been much smarter to seperate the taxation of health care from the bill.
Introduce a bill that taxes everyone 2% surcharge to pay for the costs that emergency rooms have to incur from uninsured and indigent people. (Creating a fund that would be dispersed to states based upon their documented requests for subsidization)
Then offer a tax deduction of 100% for everyone who submits a certification number for an insurance program that qualifies as coverage.

As a seperate tax law wouldn't that have passed Archduke?

The SC vote was non-binding. In the past justices have changed their mind.

Obama sold his plan during the election that he would not increase taxes on the middle class. period. That's why they structured it that way. It wouldn't have passed the congress if it was called a tax.

After the election, the Republicans will control the House, and maybe the Senate. Obama will not be able to pass health care reform in his 2nd term.

Maybe after 2014's midterms he could.

So is nobody else concerned that one of the justices who voted on this is married to a lobbyist who gets paid to advocate against it ? Isn't this one of the most blatant cases of a conflict of interests you've ever seen ?

Sassenach wrote:So is nobody else concerned that one of the justices who voted on this is married to a lobbyist who gets paid to advocate against it ? Isn't this one of the most blatant cases of a conflict of interests you've ever seen ?

I would say I'm very concerned. it's part and parcel of the wider problem, that the USSC is made up of political appointees - chosen by the Executive and ratified by the Legislature, and that in times of polarised politics this leads to odd choices for positions.

I remember a senior UK judge having to recuse himself from a panel due to his wife's position in a lobby group. Quite why US Supreme Court justices don't have the same strictures, I don't know.

Sassenach wrote:So is nobody else concerned that one of the justices who voted on this is married to a lobbyist who gets paid to advocate against it ? Isn't this one of the most blatant cases of a conflict of interests you've ever seen ?

Sorry, I guess I haven't been doing a good enough job of constantly chiming in with my contempt.

I would gladly trade Thomas for Kagan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/thomas-kagan-supreme-court-health-care_n_1113980.html

I guess there's a case for both having to recuse themselves, although I do think there's a difference between Kagan's position and Thomas' since the latter has a direct financial interest in play.

Both are great examples of the flaws in the system though. My interest in American politics doesn't really date back to when Clarence Thomas was appointed,but every USSC appointment I can recall taking an interest in has resulted in the appointment of somebody who you'd have to say wasn't the most eminent legal mind available.

freeman2 wrote:Archduke, what about the fact that the court stopped knocking down New Deal legislation after the court packing plan? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_switch ... saved_nine

Roosevelt might not have gotten the court-packing plan passed but he got what he wanted---deference towards his legislation

Roberts vote was most likely taken prior to the introduction of the legislation. Arguments in the case were held on Dec 16, 1936. Roberts announced on Dec 17th that he was going to vote to up hold the law. The vote held immediately after the case (Dec 19th)was 4-4 with one justice not voting due to illness. It was accepted that sick Justice would vote to uphold so the Chief Justice convinced the rest of the Court to hold off until he could vote so they could get a firm actual decision to uphold and not a 4-4 defeault decision to uphold. The sick Justice came back and the vote was held on the Feb 1st.

FDR didn't announce his Court packing scheme until Feb 5 1937. So this means FDR's Court packing scheme had nothing to do with Robert's vote. This is further indicated by Chief Justice Hughes' autobiography that said the Court was unaware of the scheme at the time the vote held and had nothing to do with their decision.

The reason the Court stopped knocking down New Deal Legislation was the retirement of the conservative Justices. The first to go was Van Devanter in '37, then Sutherland in '38. Butler dies in '39. So the answer to your question is no the Court packing scheme had nothing to do with changing the Courts.

rickyp wrote:I understand (or am I wrong?) that the justices voted on the Affordable Health Care Act (well, the parts of the Act before them) as soon as the questioning was over....
And that the wait till June is for the opinions to be written. Which would mean that any posturing or politicking to influence them is past the point of effect, no?

The way the Court works is a couple of days after the arguments the Justices will meet in conference. In that conference they will vote on how they want to. At this point, the most senior Justice for each side will assign the duties of writing the opinion to someone. (The Chief Justice is always the assigner for what ever side he votes on). The Justices will circulate their draft opinions amongst the others. The other Justices can make suggestions and/or indicate a willingness to join the decisions.

It is not unknown for a Justice to read the draft of the minority opinion and change his/her mind of which opinion to join. Therefore, Obama's posturing could be an attempt to get one of the Justices to change their opinion (if the Gov't lost). It could also be that he is just trying to demogogue the Court for political/relection purposes. Personally I think it is more likely the latter over the former but then I am admittedly biased.

Oh man, did you just use 'demagogue' as a verb?

I thought we'd done with that stuff...

danivon wrote:Oh man, did you just use 'demagogue' as a verb?

I thought we'd done with that stuff...

So I take it you think the President's recent comments were an attempt to influence the Court and not an attempt to rally public opinion against the Court that failed spectacularly?

Did I choose either prong of your false dichotomy? No. I just bemoan the misuse of language in such an unpretty fashion.

My own view is that Obama is too smart to try to influence the court, so he must be demagoguing. (Language mutates and evolves -- I'm not a believer in intelligent language design.) I'm disappointed that his instincts are extremely partisan.

Personally, I think it's not an either-or, and there are other factors at play.

Basically, is a President who signed a bill not allowed to be critical of the people who may strike it down, without being the subject of ungrammatical perjoratives?

It's political, but it's not particularly nefarious, really.