Free Republic

The entire landscape of Congress’s constitutional powers changed on March 27, 2012, when, very early in the argument over the individual mandate, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked a somewhat shaken Solicitor General Donald Verrilli this simple question: “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” I was as surprised by that opening gambit as everyone else. But surely not as dismayed. As three full days of oral arguments confirmed, that one question turned the constitutional showdown over Obamacare into a real horse race, with a five to four vote to strike the mandate down perhaps now the most likely outcome....

Starting on March 26th, the Supreme Court listened to three days of arguments concerning the constitutionality of the healthcare act that has come to be known as “Obamacare.” Their ruling, which won’t come until the end of June, will shape the future of American healthcare. While the healthcare issue has been off the front pages since it was signed in March of 2010, the constituently of one of its more controversial requirements has been in and out of the federal court system. The ruling addresses an issue at the heart of how our nation is governed. The Constitution gives a...

Dems wage pressure campaign on Supreme Court over health rulingBy Alexander Bolton - 04/02/12 06:02 PM ET Democrats have waged a not-so-subtle pressure campaign on the Supreme Court in recent days by warning a ruling against the healthcare reform law would smash precedent and threaten popular social programs. President Obama was the latest to weigh in when he declared Monday that a wide array of legal experts would be astonished if the court struck down part or all of his signature domestic initiative. “I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law,” Obama said Monday during a Rose Garden press...

Dean: Individual mandate 'not really necessary' Published April 01, 2012 | FoxNews.com Former Democratic Party chief Howard Dean said Sunday that the so-called individual mandate is "not really necessary" to the federal health care overhaul, and said a Supreme Court decision to invalidate the provision could end up helping President Obama. The Supreme Court met privately on Friday to discuss the case, though a decision is not expected to be made public until June. A central challenge in the case was over whether the requirement that Americans buy health insurance is constitutional. Further, the justices heard arguments on whether a...

* Private conferences held with only justices attending * Confidentiality drilled into clerks "from day one" * No leaks of Supreme Court rulings in recent decades By James Vicini WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Friday held closed-door deliberations on President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul law, likely casting preliminary votes on how they will eventually rule on their highest-profile case in years. In an institution known for keeping its secrets, no leaks are likely before formal opinions have been written and announced from the bench. That is not expected to occur until late June, when the...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "ObamaCare." Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn't the court keep the good stuff in ObamaCare and just dump the unconstitutional bits? The court, she explained, is presented with "a choice between a wrecking operation ... or a salvage job. And the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything." "Conservative" is a funny word. It can mean lots of different things. It reminds me of that...

Arguments have concluded at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which we refer to as Obamacare. Now the anxious waiting for a ruling expected in June. We were encouraged . . .The Constitution has morphed into something the founders would have difficulty recognizing. It is our position the federal government has no authority to impose mandates, regulations, taxes or other burdens on the citizenry simply to improve someone's life. . . .

We thought we’d celebrate today, just in case all the indicators prove false and the Supreme Court decides to uphold Obamacare. Judging from the reactions, even on the left, including the left-learning press, it seems likely the justices will put an end to President Barack Obama’s signature legislative triumph – the one you had to pass so you could find out what’s in it. It seems the justices, or at least enough of them, read it and found out. And didn’t much care for what they discovered. Here’s the news . . .

This week, the Supreme Court measured Obamacare to see whether it fits within the confines of the Constitution. The big picture is whether the Constitution limits the behavior of the federal government to the plain meaning and historical context of the Constitution, or whether clever lawyers and politicians can interpret language in the Constitution so as to justify whatever Congress wishes to do. Does the Constitution mean what it says? Does it limit the federal government to the powers it has delegated to Congress? Or is it a blank check for Congress to do whatever it can get away with?...

Did Obama purposely leave a 'silver' bullet in the Obamacare bill? Or is it more like a returning torpedo? The question is can you have an individual mandate if there is no penalty or fine for not complying with that mandate? In the Obamacare bill there is a penalty for those not purchasing health insurance. But what is the fine if one does not pay this penalty? The answer is nothing. There is no fine. This is common knowledge for a lot of us Freepers. It was mentioned by Eric Bolling on The Five yesterday. I'd like some legal beagle...

Paul Clement has been receiving rave reviews for his performance during the second day of oral arguments over health-care reform before the Supreme Court. (“[T]he best argument I’ve ever heard,” SCOTUSblog Tom Goldstein raved on Twitter). But Clement’s finest moment may have come when he was completely silent. A little more than two minutes into Solicitor General Donald Verilli’s turn at the bar, Justice Anthony Kennedy interrupted him: “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Kennedy’s query was an almost verbatim recital of Clement’s own talking point, part of the fundamental argument he has made against the individual...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Supreme Court, what's going on. It doesn't appear -- and you really can't make any judgments, final judgments on this. But the oral arguments do not appear to be going well for the regime. The regime's solicitor general is being laughed at on occasion, and the justices are poking holes in many regime arguments up there. But, as I say, oral arguments, you never know what indicator they are. It's like trying to read a jury. But still, it's entertaining and it's instructive and we'll pass it all on to you. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Oral arguments...

A top legal analyst predicted Tuesday that the Obama administration's healthcare reform legislation seemed likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Toobin, a lawyer and legal analyst, who writes about legal topics for The New Yorker said the law looked to be in "trouble." He called it a "trainwreck for the Obama administration." "This law looks like it's going to be struck down. I'm telling you, all of the predictions, including mine, that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong," Toobin said Tuesday on CNN. "I think this law is in grave,...

And now, for the main event. Today, the Court tackles the individual mandate, and whether Congress has taken a step too far by enacting it. The question is basic: Is the individual mandate constitutional? The consequences are heady. Whichever way the Court decides will have a critical effect on the scope of Congress’ power – and possibly, our freedom.What’s At Stake? The individual mandate – or, as the federal government will call it, the “minimum coverage provision” – has been under fire ever since the inception of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, in 2009. The political Left argues...

When a 1942 Supreme Court decision that most people never heard of makes the front page of the New York Times in 2012, you know something unusual is going on. What makes that 1942 case — Wickard v. Filburn — important today is that it stretched the federal government's power so far that the Obama administration is using it as an argument to claim before today's Supreme Court it has the legal authority to impose ObamaCare mandates on individuals. The implications of this kind of reasoning reached far beyond farmers and wheat. Once it was established that the federal government...

The constitutional questions the Affordable Care Act poses are great, novel and grave, as much today as they were when they were first posed in an op-ed on these pages by the Washington lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey on September 18, 2009. The appellate circuits are split, as are legal experts of all interpretative persuasions. The Obama Administration and its allies are already planning to attack the Court's credibility and legitimacy if it overturns the Affordable Care Act. They will claim it is a purely political decision, but this should not sway the Justices any more than should the...

On Monday the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments concerning possible — actually, probable and various — constitutional infirmities in Obamacare. The justices have received many amicus briefs, one of which merits special attention because of the elegant scholarship and logic with which it addresses an issue that has not been as central to the debate as it should be. Hitherto, most attention has been given to whether Congress, under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, may coerce individuals into engaging in commerce by buying health insurance. Now the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest...

There are so many things wrong with Obamacare, it’s a wonder we’ve reached a point where so many people don’t see the problems. Or perhaps they just refuse to, hm? Next week there will be arguments before the Supreme Court on whether it’s constitutionally within the government’s power to dictate to private people that they must buy private products from private providers. Back in the day, we’d say that was a transaction for all those private parties to decide. We’ve come a long way, indeed. One thing not likely to come up ...

Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate in the federal health care law or the law in its entirety, signaling the depth of public disagreement with that element of the Affordable Care Act. This ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that Americans oppose the law overall by 52-41 percent. And 67 percent believe the high court should either ditch the law or at least the portion that requires nearly all Americans to have coverage. The high court opens hearings on the law’s constitutionality a week from today. The law has never earned majority...

Next week, the Supreme Court takes up the Obamacare litigation, the heart of which is the issue of whether the federal government can constitutionally force people to buy health insurance. The question of whether Congress could, by using its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, require people to buy something would have been laughably easy. Obviously it can't: sitting around doing nothing, or even deciding not to buy something, is neither commerce - traditionally defined as trade or exchange, so not even agriculture or manufacturing counts - nor anything interstate. And so if we can all be subject to economic...