Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Sotomayor Helps Puerto Rico Argue Its Bankruptcy Case
Bloomberg View via Yahoo! Finance ^ | 23 Mar 2016 | Noah Feldman

Posted on 03/23/2016 8:14:01 AM PDT by oblomov

Before Tuesday, I’d have said that Puerto Rico had no chance to win its legal fight to let its municipalities and utilities declare bankruptcy. That's how the island hopes to resolve its overwhelming debt problems, but the federal bankruptcy code says that it can't.

That's what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held last summer, unanimously. The statute seemed so clear that even Judge Juan Torruella, the appellate court’s only Puerto Rican member, concurred in an outraged separate opinion criticizing the federal law.

Puerto Rico's Slide

Then Sonia Sotomayor stepped in. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court rarely change the outcome of a case, yet Tuesday's session may turn out to be the exception. In a fascinating and unusual argument, Justice Sotomayor, who is herself of Puerto Rican descent, spoke by my count an astonishing 45 times. Sotomayor left no doubt that she was speaking as an advocate.

The interpretation of the law she favored would make the system fairer to Puerto Rico, allowing the commonwealth to create its own emergency bankruptcy measures outside federal law. But it depends on a highly doubtful reading of the statute, one that stretches credulity when read into the text. Ideally, Congress will hear what happened at the oral argument and pass one of the reform proposals it’s currently considering that would spare the court from having to decide the case.

Sotomayor walked Puerto Rico’s attorney, Christopher Landau, through his own argument with a precision that exceeded his own. She answered other justices’ hostile questions for him, better than he did. Then she dominated Matthew McGill, the lawyer for the creditors of Puerto Rico’s electrical utility, who are fighting the bankruptcy bid. In the second half of the argument, the other justices mostly stood by and let her go at him.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: puertorico; sotomayor
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last
No reward for fiscal probity. We are to endlessly accommodate failed states such as Puerto Rico.

Sotomayor should recuse herself from this case. Her behavior, as described in this article, is an embarrassment.

1 posted on 03/23/2016 8:14:01 AM PDT by oblomov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: oblomov

PR would be better off to declare itself separate from the US....become a country, and attract companies via a tax-free status to set up and provide jobs for the economy.


2 posted on 03/23/2016 8:16:40 AM PDT by pepsionice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

The “wise latino” who should not be a judge at all, nevermind a justice of the Supreme Court.


3 posted on 03/23/2016 8:17:33 AM PDT by Ray76 (Judge Roy Moore for Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

If only, if only somehow we could in our infinite appeasing, quisling liberal conniving goodness just accommodate the citizens of Puerto Rico by GIVING them statehood with two Senators and some Congressmen without that pesky Federal Income Tax Requirement, actually paying off their damned debt, or deleting their SSDI payments for being ‘disabled’ by only speaking Spanish......if only.

The ‘wise Latina’ isn’t interested in the United States; she’s interested in bringing it down.


4 posted on 03/23/2016 8:17:56 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

Thank goodness that we have a wide Latina holding down the Bench.


5 posted on 03/23/2016 8:18:35 AM PDT by Paladin2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Paladin2
You expect something else. We take care of our own......don't matter right or wrong. What has the Constitution got to do with it. Were all Spaniards at heart.
6 posted on 03/23/2016 8:21:05 AM PDT by mastertex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

It’s the Dumb Latina.


7 posted on 03/23/2016 8:21:25 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

Another system that ran out of other people’s money


8 posted on 03/23/2016 8:22:45 AM PDT by LMAO (I know Hillary and I think she'd make a great president or Vice President. Don Trump 2008)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pepsionice

Their problem is their socialist big government approach.

We shouldn’t bail them out, they should simply reform their approach to their economy.

But if/since they won’t, I wouldn’t mind seeing them go. They never would, of course, because they wouldn’t want to lose our subsidies and US citizenship.


9 posted on 03/23/2016 8:24:00 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/6/feds-consider-puerto-ricans-disabled-because-they-/


10 posted on 03/23/2016 8:33:01 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

While I agree with the First Cir 100%, Judges do this ALL the time. I’ve argued enough cases (and at the appellate level( where I hve wanted to say a couple times “would you please stop trying the case for the other side”.

Obviously whoever wrote the article doesn’t understand how the system works.


11 posted on 03/23/2016 8:38:30 AM PDT by RIghtwardHo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

All of my FRiends with money in tax-free bond funds should review the fund’s bond list. A lot of them have substantial holdings in Puerto Rican bonds and, if the wide Latina gets her way, will see those holdings’ value drop to zero.


12 posted on 03/23/2016 8:40:23 AM PDT by VanShuyten ("a shadow...draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

I don’t see the Supreme Court reversing a unanimous verdict 5-3.


13 posted on 03/23/2016 8:42:35 AM PDT by Mike Darancette (The most vocal supporters of a good con man are the victims.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: VanShuyten
They're in the bond funds because of the high interest rates due to the risks of default.

And now the bond holder lawyers claim is that there really wasn't any risk since PR couldn't declare bankruptcy?

SCOTUS going 4-4 on this knowing there's no precedent risk seems like a fair bet.

14 posted on 03/23/2016 8:48:58 AM PDT by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: pepsionice

“PR would be better off to declare itself separate from the US....become a country, and attract companies via a tax-free status to set up and provide jobs for the economy.”

PR cannot run itself. It’s just plain ol’ Latin American corruption that holds it back. If they became a country - the Social Security, Disability, and Medicare/Medicaid payments would stop and the population would starve.

The smart and productive leave the island.

PR will be competing with Cuba for investment dollars now. It doesn’t look good for them.


15 posted on 03/23/2016 8:59:59 AM PDT by RFEngineer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

Why is Sam Alito recused?

Is this an intentional power play by John Roberts to give the leftists (Kagan, Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomajor) a sure majority?


16 posted on 03/23/2016 9:17:06 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

“””The case will be decided by seven justices, since the late Justice Antonin Scalia hasn’t been replaced and Justice Samuel Alito is recused. That means Sotomayor would need four votes to win. Chief Justice John Roberts spoke briefly, expressing skepticism about Puerto Rico’s position. Justice Clarence Thomas was silent. So was Justice Anthony Kennedy”””


What is going on???


17 posted on 03/23/2016 9:18:39 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Presbyterian Reporter

Alito owns Puerto Rican bonds.


18 posted on 03/23/2016 9:23:05 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: oblomov

Democrat money laundering.


19 posted on 03/23/2016 9:41:19 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Judges don’t give advise on how to win your case. She is not a real judge; sorry any lovers of change for the sake of change...


20 posted on 03/23/2016 10:04:02 AM PDT by veracious
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson