The plain language makes it plain.
But a hahvahd lawyer can find pixies and fairy dust much more persuasive than the boring old plain text
You know, there are several avenues here for John Roberts to correct his earlier screw up, which may be something that he’s willing to embrace. Follow me here.
1. The court already issued on that forgotten bit about the law not being able to be separated out amongst its various pieces. They had a whole day to argue that bit the first time it went to the top court, and the ruling was, if one part fell, the whole law goes with it.
2. This case hinges on a completely separate issue, being that the statute itself was written specifically to say that the Federal Government would not have permission to subsidize the exchanges. It is a statutory issue, not a Constitutional one at all.
3. The court will almost always ignore dealing with Constitutional questions if a case can be decided or solved via the statutory issues already dealt with. (See Scalia’s comments about 99.9% of the work done at the Court being Lawyer’s work.)
4. There’s not much wiggle room allowed by the statute itself. In order to come to their decision, the Fourth Circuit had to basically ignore the statute and use the time honored because we want to do it this way due to politics legal test in order to rule the way that they did.
5. This gives Roberts permission to overturn the whole law, while not reversing his puzzling ruling from a couple of years ago. My bet is that he’ll embrace that opportunity. Especially since it’s pretty clear to anyone over the age of 5 that this law is massively destructive to our society.
Flyovercountry on November 7, 2014 at 6:04 PM
..depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
To me, the real problem is the Supreme Court must already have a decision made. If they decide in favor of subsidizing in stark contrast to written law the Supreme Court will be dead. The only possible arguments are political.
The SC will not rule against the signature piece of legislation of the first (or second) Black president.
Keep praying something will happen good on this.
I do NOT TRUST ROBERTS!!!! Actually I trust only Scalia and Alito and Thomas!!
Obola is going to be attacked from all sides, now. The magic negro has left the building.
What Friday. Maybe by November in 2015! Damn Court has been making political decisions and have been not judging according to the Constitution which they took an oath to do. It has been more like a communists Democrat talking points decision making pack of nuts.
“If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding.” ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The Supreme Court essentially gave up on trying to interpret the Constitution in the 1930s, when FDR blackmailed them. They haven’t shown any inclination since.
However, reading the unambiguous text of a law has not yet been fully discarded, so this could go against the president. The only thing really scary is that the lower courts have defer to what this president says it should mean, rather than what was written.
May they affect his flawed constitutional judgement in a positive direction!
I literally stumbled into Newt and his wife last night. They, and their handlers, were leaving a sparsely attended (Friday night from 6-7 in Palm Beach county) book signing at a B&N. Their large SUV was parked in the handicapped spot at the front door. Impressive!
BTW, they couldn’t get out of there fast enough at 7pm. A Capital Grille was about 300 yards away. I wonder if they drove? Valet service at CG.