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February 23, 2011 08:19 PM UTC
20 Comments
The gov’t has won in over a dozen of these challenges, but those decisions aren’t reported as much as “wowee, judge struck down the law!”
http://www.insidecounsel.com/I…
The journalism on this issue is shitty beyond belief.
You’re saying that every news outlet in America is getting this wrong? Eh?
with Rush/Beck/Fox/GOP talking points.
There have been 11 or 12 cases which judges have dismissed as being without standing. Most of the media outlets don’t count those rulings as victories for the government.
In all five cases that actually went up for argument, the issue of Congress’s authority to enact the non-insurance tax was in question. Several of them also ruled on 10th Amendment grounds (the Exchange system). In two of the three cases ruling the law Constitutional, an additional question was asked over religious burden.
The States have lost in all cases so far on 10th Amendment grounds, and the individual plaintiffs have lost their religious objection challenges. The only area where the courts are currently split is on the Commerce Clause issue…
… or whoever you are, but you share her remarkable ability to ignore facts and disingenuously mischaracterize what people said. Here are what we in reality call “facts” (but feel free to respond with “Eh” again):
* Of the many lawsuits suing to strike down the health law as unconstitutional, 2 have succeded while about 15 have been dismissed. Phoenix is exactly right that of those 15 or so, 3 have said “the have standing and the law is unconstitutional,” while about a dozen have said no standing exists to challenge the law.
* Yet the illuminati at the NYT, and certainly at lesser outlets, declare a 3-2 split rather than a 15-2 split, mentioning only that there are five cases:
I also love how you d-bags on the right whine all day, “the MAINSTREAM MEDIA are terrible!” — but as soon as they prove shitty at covering something favoring Dems (the 15-2 split on challenges to the health law), you act “shocked, shocked” anyone could suggest the media err. Get your damn simpleton talking points straight, ok?
If they dont rule on the substantive issue, but rather dismiss because of a procedural one, then it really is not a ruling on whether it is uncostitutional or not.
For example, if I go file a lawsuit tommorow claiming that the XYZ law is bullshit, but I file in a court that does not have proper jurisdiction, it will be dismissed. Does that say anything about the merits of my claim that XYZ is bullshit? NO.
You are really exposing your lack of knowledge, and being a jerk to boot.
If you’re too stupid to file in the proper court, you have no reason to call Raymond stupid.
Jurisdictional rules are not always cut and dry. There are times that jurisdiction can be very difficult to determine. It is a common reason for cases to be dismissed.
Let me see if I can make this easy for you: Standing and jurisdiction go hand in hand. They are both procedural reasons for dismissing a case, i.e., dismissing a case without considering the merits.
http://images.encyclopediadram…
Yes, I get the difference between a justiciability and a commerce clause ruling. Doesn’t change the fact that
(a) it’s incorrect to have headlines like “Health Reform Court Rulings Now 3-2 In Favor”, and
(b) if you’re handicapping the odds the health law challenges win at the Sup Ct, a 2-2 or 3-2 record in the lower court makes the odds look decent, whereas a 2-15 record makes it look like only loony far-far-right judges are willing to strike this law down.
Nothing better than someone who is wrong trying to win an argument by simply saying it louder. That doesn’t help you.
The headline you propose would be factually and legally incorrect. And for the record, I think the Sup. Ct. will uphold the law.
Lets break this down. I will use your quotation above to show you why you are wrong. This will be fun.
(a) The “rulings” by “courts” on “health reform” is 3-2. In the other 12 cases you mention the “court” did not issue a “ruling” on “health reform.” Instead, the court ruled on the standing of that particular plaintiff.
(b)This is just dumb. The Supreme court doesn’t add up a tally of lower court rulings to determine a winner. It has absolutely nothing to do with what the Sup Ct. will decide. It is a debatable issue because the commerce clause does not have an absolute meaning. It means what the SCOTUS says it means.
Five of the justices on the Supreme Court ARE loony right-wingers. Well four of them anyway, and the fifth can be persuaded.
The NY Times story claims that “the issue will almost certainly be determined by the Supreme Court.” But, I’m not at all convinced that this will happen.
The U.S. Supreme Court usually steps in when there is a conflict between U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. So far, that conflict doesn’t exist. Two trial court judges have ruled the law unconstitutional, but it is not at all obvious that the reasoning that they used will hold up on appeal. If the trial court rulings finding the law to be unconstitutional are overturned on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to take up the matter.
The circuit judges that are drawn to hear the cases will be crucial.
For anyone interested in understanding the limits (or lack thereof) of the Commerce Clause and Federal authority, we don’t have to read the TEA leaves – we can look at the actions of the Founding Fathers in passing legislation.
Early Congresses passed two laws that directly relate to Congress’s ability to mandate individual expenditures…
First, the Militia Act of 1792 requires
Second, the 1798 Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen required all merchant captains to remit fees (recoverable from sailors’ wages) to be paid to the United States, to be used for the creation of marine hospitals. Sailors who were verified to have paid their fees were given vouchers that could be used at the marine hospitals, granting them health care coverage. As time went on, these vouchers came to be accepted at private hospitals, and coverage was expanded to river boatmen and others. (The Marine Hospital Service survived until the 1970’s, with some hospitals still providing public services in to the early 1980’s). You could, of course, not pay your fees – but the penalty was non-renewal of your ship’s license.
PHX Rising: that is a good point, but Congress cannot interpret the meaning of the constitution. That power is reserved to the court. (see case I can’t think of off the top of my head). Thus, the fact that an early congress interpreted the commerce clause in a certain way is not really relevant because it is not binding on the court. It doesnt matter, from a legal point of view, if it was close in time to the drafting of the Const.
But my main point is this: The words “commerce…among the several states” do not have a single absolute meaning.
They mean what the court says they mean.
That being said, the court has shown that anything even remotely connected to a market where goods/services are bought and sold is within the reach of Congress via the commerce clause. This means that if the Court stays true to its recent interpretations of the CC, then the law will be constitutional.
… Scalia or Thomas or any of the conservatives who normally pound the table and say “we must interpret the constitution the way the founders did,” which is why Thomas and Scalia regularly cite practice from the late 1700s!
This is a valid point!
But I didn’t think PHX was an originalist.
The court system uses the past record of this country – Congressional, Excutive, and Judcicial – when looking at cases. It will look, for example, at the fact that the Marine Health Services system remained intact for almost two hundred years without a successful Court challenge. It will look at the similarities in intent, effect, and implementation between these bills – put in to place by the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution – and not dismiss the implication that they did not think this use of Congressional authority to be an abuse of the Constitution.
This will happen both at the appellate level and at the SCOTUS should it ever get there. And if it does reach the high court, there are some originalists on the Court and I believe at least one of them will be principled enough to uphold the Constitutionality of the law.