Posted on 03/28/2012 12:09:24 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Justices to lawyers: Don't make us read the law
By: Politico Staff March 28, 2012 02:22 PM EDT
So much for read the bill.
Three days into oral arguments over President Barack Obamas health care law, Supreme Court justices made a plea to the lawyers Wednesday: Please dont make us read it.
Justice Antonin Scalia cut in when Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said the justices would need to look at the structure and the text of the 2,700-page law .
Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? Scalia asked a joking reference to the Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?
And do you really expect the court to do that? Or do you expect us to to give this function to our law clerks? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?"
Taking a swipe at the courts textualists, Justice Elena Kagan said the court could dispense with the legislative history and look at the text thats actually given us.
For some people, we look only at the text, she said. It should be easy for Justice Scalia's clerks.
I don't care whether it's easy for my clerks, Scalia said to laughs. I care whether it's easy for me.
Although read the bill was a rallying cry on the right during the congressional fight over the law, Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to acknowledge Wednesday that he hadnt done so himself.
Where is this line? he asked Kneedler at one point. I looked through the whole Act, I didn't read ...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
They only need to read ONE part - the NON SEVERABILITY CLAUSE!! If ANY portion of Obamacare is found Unconstitutional, then the ENTIRE LAW MUST be struck down! That’s the ONLY portion of text in the entire 2,700 pages that truly matters at this point.
Honestly though, it’s really sad that even our Supreme Court Justices are complaining about reading the actual text. I mean they’ve had over two years, it’s not like we didn’t all know this was going to end up in SCOTUS.
And that was the best thing the right did...branding. We refused to use the right name...and our reps refused to use the right name. We branded the healthcare law as Obamacare...and now ALL the ills that will come from it will forever be associated with him in the minds of the people.
think about this as a practical exercise.
The law was PROHIBITED from being read before passage.
NOW in order to support the law the Obama lawyer wants 2700 boooooring pages read in 90 days WITH an opinion being written!
I be the clerks are really really happy (releaved) right now.
2700 pages in 90 days means 30 pages per day.
Why waste time? The only part the justices really need to read is where it forces us to buy something. Then search the word "severable" in the digital version of the document. If it's not there, everything else is moot. It's un-Constitutional compost.
The courts are not required to read the law that is being argued.
It is up to the suing parties to present the ‘pertinent points’ of the law to the court, so it can be decided whether they are binding or Constitutional.
You can’t expect the courts to argue your case for you.
Ever been to a civil trial?
Attorneys ‘site’ parts of laws to argue their case before the court. They rarely ever site the entire law.
The courts are only required to rule on what is presented before them.
site = cite
:*(
That would be more reading than any of those Yale law clerks ever did in law school!
I read the entire law, sentence by sentence and word by word. I reread many sections to make sure I understood. I took notes for a couple hundred pages before I decided that was too much. Before opposing the bill (as I expected to do), I wanted to be sure it was as bad as the summaries implied. It's actually far worse than I expected.
No bias there, huh?
eyes rolling...
.
Put term limits on staffers, not elected officials. Congress would slow to a crawl, and they wouldn't mess with stupid legislation, only have time to get real work done. Introducing legislation would take so much longer, they would have to put real thought and effort into it.
That should be reason enough for Obamacare to be declared unconstitutional. When legislation fails to be comprehensible for a citizen of reasonable understanding it is no longer a law and should be voided.
A corollary to ignorance of the law is no excuse, is that the law must be comprehensible.
I understand all that you are saying. However, as a CITIZEN of these United States, nevermind their positions in the government, it would be nice to know that they had read at least a few significant portions over the last few years. (Yes, I understand that they may have done so already, but it wouldn’t be brought up at this juncture because they are making a point to Obama’s lawyer, and as you pointed out they are to decide on what is presented to them by the parties appearing in court.)
In asking the justices to read the entire law and make ruling on each item it would seem that the Dems/Socialists are attempting to see just how far the courts would let them go in ignoring the Constitution if they were to propose an “amended” law in the future. (Think Alinsky and seeing how far you can go before you encounter resistance.)
Wow... Thanks for posting that image - I hadn’t seen it before.
Congress is the source of this monstrosity, and its not certain that this law, written by one or more committees, has actually been read word-for-word by any one person. What is certain is that few Congressmen read even the half of it. Do you remember You have to pass it to see whats in it. Do you remember discussions about deeming it passed? Im not even sure that they legitimately conducted an up-or-down vote to pass the thing!And that legislative history is what should put paid to the whole charade! No opportunity for our representatives to vet the bill = taxation without representation - tyranny.
I agree with you. I'm just talking about how the lefties in the media and the Democrat party will spin it in a relentless attack on the "conservative" SCOTUS.
Parts of it read like Maoism, with all these "community" organizations and authorities dictating health programs etc. on an individual basis, like the nation is one big fat camp. This thing's been law for two years now, but nobody knows what to do with it. It's an incredible disaster for this country.
If you want to fix the law, you might need to understand the whole thing. But to know that it's broken, you do not.
If the mandate part fails, the whole law fails. Whether the mandate is constitutional does not depend on any other part of the law. What part of this law do you think would change the fact of the mandate being unconstitutional?
Laws as complex as this one are made that complex only to hide things, and usually to hide tyrannical or corrupt things. We are lucky in this case that the tyrannical individual mandate is out in the open.
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