Thomas, Kagan asked to sit out health care case

AP Via OO ^ | AP

[Enosh]

WASHINGTON – Conservative interest groups and Republican lawmakers want Justice Elena Kagan off the health care case. Liberals and Democrats in Congress say it’s Justice Clarence Thomas who should sit it out.

Neither justice is budging — the right decision, according to many ethicists and legal experts.

None of the parties in the case has asked the justices to excuse themselves. But underlying the calls on both sides is their belief that the conservative Thomas is a sure vote to strike down President Barack Obama’s health care law and that the liberal Kagan is certain to uphold the main domestic achievement of the man who appointed her.

The stakes are high in the court’s election-year review of a law aimed at extending coverage to more than 30 million people. Both sides have engaged in broad legal and political maneuvering for the most favorable conditions surrounding the court’s consideration of the case.

Taking away just one vote potentially could tip the outcome on the nine-justice court.

Republican lawmakers recently have stepped up their effort against Kagan, complaining that the Justice Department has not fully revealed Kagan’s involvement in planning the response to challenges to the law. Kagan was Obama’s solicitor general, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, until he nominated her to the high court last year.

“The public has a right to know both the full extent of Justice Kagan’s involvement with this legislation while she was solicitor general, as well as her previously stated views and opinions about the legislation while she was serving as solicitor general,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Tuesday in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

[olezip]

Republican lawmakers recently have stepped up their effort against Kagan, complaining that the Justice Department has not fully revealed Kagan’s involvement in planning the response to challenges to the law. Kagan was Obama’s solicitor general, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, until he nominated her to the high court last year.

Kagan was directly involved with supporting Obamacare. She mislead or lied to the lawmakers who approved her selection as a member of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Thomas has a spouse who works. He was NOT directly involved with the Obamacare issue. The Democrats are loud and boisterous over nothing, maybe to distract from the Kagan issue. She should resign in disgrace.

[RipSawyer]

I don’t see that they have a point at all about Thomas, they are simply saying that as a bona fide conservative justice and a strict constructionist it can be assumed that he will vote against Obama care. That is absolutely no reason to expect that he should excuse himself. In fact the matter is so unconstitutional that any justice who would even consider finding it constitutional should resign. Of course that applies to the bulk of federal law as it exists. If we actually went BACK to the constitution most of the federal government would have to be shut down.

[RipSawyer]

First you would have to agree on definitions for every word in the constitution! Too many now believe that “make no law” means make all kinds of law, “shall not be infringed” means shall be infringed in every possible way, silence means consent, “promote the general welfare” means socialism, “a Republican form of government” means democracy, fascism, dictatorship or whatever etc. If the document had no more meaning than MOST Americans assign to it and I don’t mean just the left, I include many who call themselves strict conservatives, there would have been no reason to write it, let alone struggle for months and haggle over every word. A simple, “Do what you wish, after all the blood, sweat, tears and agony of a revolution we have no energy left to worry about setting down rules for the future”, would have sufficed.

[goat granny]

Kagan yes, Thomas no,