Posted on 11/01/2012 1:26:21 PM PDT by Evil Slayer
The Justice Department said it does not object to a new round of legal arguments over President Obama's healthcare law.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court late Wednesday, the Justice Department said the court should clear the way for a possible new hearing in the lawsuit filed by Liberty University.
Although the Supreme Court has already ruled that the healthcare law's individual mandate is constitutional, Liberty has asked for a new hearing because it challenged the mandate on different grounds.
A lower court declined to rule in Liberty's suit because it said the challenge was barred by the Anti-Injunction Act — a federal law that says taxes can't be challenged in court before they take effect. But when the Supreme Court issued its landmark healthcare ruling, in a separate case, it said the Anti-Injunction Act did not prevent a ruling on the merits of the individual mandate.
Because of that, Liberty says it should get another shot to make its case on the merits. Liberty, unlike the states whose case made it to the Supreme Court, challenged the mandate on religious grounds.
Liberty's initial complaint said because university employees would have to comply with the individual mandate and the university would have to to comply with the employer mandate, they "cannot protect their sincerely held religious beliefs against facilitating, subsidizing, easing, funding or supporting abortions."
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it does not object to Liberty's request for a new lower-court hearing. According to SCOTUSBlog, Justice said it would not "oppose further proceedings in the court of appeals" to resolve Liberty's claims.
That means the Supreme Court could vacate the lower court's ruling and allow that court to hear the case again. The Supreme Court hasn't yet scheduled a time to consider Liberty's request.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Moot by the end of February.
SnakeDoc
More ammo for Mitt’s effort to shoot down Obamacare.
Maybe Roberts will retire in disgust because Americans don't read his rulings that tell them they are free.
The interesting aspect of this story is that Obama's Justice Department may be tipping its hand a bit by allowing this challenge to go through. The Court originally refused to hear the arguments because the specific provisions of ObamaCare that Liberty University is challenged haven't been implemented yet. If the Justice Department is agreeing to have this case heard now, it might mean that they believe ObamaCare stands a better chance of being upheld in the current Supreme Court term than in a future term.
This might mean they don't expect Barack Obama to be nominating the replacement for the next retiring Supreme Court justice.
SCOTUS would probably say that forcing every American to buy a VOLT, buy $40 a week in veggies, walk a mile a day and turn their thermostat to 78 in summer are all legal. Free country?
I guess it’s good news. Why are sincerely held religious views capable of fending off nonexistent federal jurisdiction, but sincerely held personal views are not?
SCOTUS would probably say that forcing every American to buy a VOLT, buy $40 a week in veggies, walk a mile a day and turn their thermostat to 78 in summer are all legal.
No, that would be unconstitutional. Passing a law that says people not doing those things would be liable to an additional $1000 per day tax however would be just fine. Justice Roberts is in top running for the idiot of the year.
Does anyone know if health insurance carriers are required (by any State Insurance Commissioners) to cover condoms, contraceptives and/or abortions?
I’m just remembering back in the day when routine maternity/delivery was not covered.
How much has changed??
Good grief ... that link is one tortured reading of the Obamacare ruling. Just a bunch of Tax Protester hokum masquerading as a technical legal analysis of John Roberts completely lawless ruling.
SnakeDoc
My point was nobody will need to rule on anything if it is repealed.
I’ll never trust John Roberts again ... with this case, or any other. His Obamacare opinion was the single worst ruling I’ve ever read — and I’m an attorney, I’ve read some really bad ones. My opinion of a jurist has never turned so quickly in my entire life.
He invented a completely novel interpretation of the law ... one that no other Judge or Justice in this country ever agreed with, and that no lawyer on either side — or in amicus briefs — even argued for. He just made it up off the top of his head.
His ruling was entirely lawless. As far as I am concerned, he is a rogue justice. He made a mockery out of the law, himself, and his Court.
SnakeDoc
I would’ve challenged it on the basis that a tax bill must originate in the House. Since Roberts rule this damn thing is justified under the taxing authority ... then it should be subject to the Constitutional limitations on tax bills.
But, ultimately, it’ll have to go through Roberts again. If he can make-up a ruling that this is a justified as a tax ... he can just as easily make-up one that it is a tax for the purposes of his last ruling, but not a tax for the purposes of the Constitutional provision that “tax bills must originate in the House”.
Such is the nature of rogue justices that make-up the law as they go along.
SnakeDoc
Unfortunately, the Obamacare bill passed by the Senate actually did originate in the House.
Harry Reid picked up a dead bill submitted by the House, stripped all the content out, and reintroduced it with the Obamacare verbiage. It is within his authority to do this.
So, technically, Obamacare did originate in the House. And your concern is exactly why Reid acted as he did...
As I recall, the House passed a bill. The Senate then passed their own bill. They had to force it through the House as is because they couldn’t go back to the Senate (since Brown had replace Kennedy) if it was modified ... and they also couldn’t get the House version through the Senate.
My recollection is that the inability to go back to the Senate resulted in the original Senate bill being passed by the House. If it originated in the House ... why did the House have to pass it again?
SnakeDoc
Simple. While it was actually a House bill, it had been amended (by 100%). So, the House had to pass it again...as amended.
ObamaCare actually did originate in the House. It was introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel (Corrupt-NY) as some kind of budget reconciliation bill months before it was passed. It had an HR (”House Resolution”) number attached to it, and all that.
“While it was actually a House bill, it had been amended (by 100%). So, the House had to pass it again...as amended.”
There were 2 House bills. One was their monstrous version of health reform (also weighing in at many hundreds of pages). This had no prospect of passage following Scott Brown’s victory. So, as you say, the Senate picked up another House bill on a completely unrelated issue, (but which had some minor tax provision in it so that it could be technically but misleadingly said to be a revenue bill originated in the House) stripped the entire contents of the bill and substituted the monstrosity that became Obamacare.
This version then went back to the House for approval and then they passed a separate “reconciliation” bill that fixed the things the House didn’t like, but because it contained reconciliation provisions, this “clean-up” bill could be passed in the Senate with only 51 votes etc. So in the end, the Dems just barely adhered to the letter of the law/Constitution even while massively violating its spirit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.