The 4 liberal justices are apparently hammering the challengers pretty hard, Kennedy is being tough on both sides, and Roberts is being silent. My guess is this goes 5-4 against the challengers.
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My opinion is this is wishful thinking and a desperate attempt that regardless of the outcome will result in zero changes to the status quo. The WH will ask them to fix the error, the reps will say no. The WH and media will claim the reps cannot legislate, an eleventh hour change to make it apply. Should the conservative wing take a stand on this and no amendments take place, the white house will simply have states sign a contract that changes the federal exchanges to state exchanges “managed by the federal gov’t”. Of course, some republican governors and legislators will take a stand, but they will have to look in a camera and say that those who get subsidies (which is many) can no longer get it. And they will fold. Maybe somebody then challenges that in the SCOTUS later.
It is over, we lost on this one, despite being right. The only benefit out of this I see is that future laws will have to be better written. But I don’t have much hope for that.
I honestly don’t understand how it’s not 9-0. The wording is explicit. It’s not for the SCOTUS to correct bad law, though some seem to think they have evolved to a quasi-legislature.
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For an interesting take on things: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414809/seven-things-you-should-know-about-irs-rule-challenged-king-v-burwell-michael-f
Funny that I never heard from the mainstream media that the IRS initially concluded, upon reading the law, that they could only offer the subsidies/tax credits in exchanges created by the states, and not the Federal exchange.
Spot
I read an article someplace that suggested that Roberts changed his mind, in part, because he was worried about the perception of the Court.
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Am I the only one that just doesn’t have the energy to follow this crap anymore? You have to consider at a gazillion issues, view the short, medium, and long term consequences, and then get into the legal intricacies and nuances of how judges are supposed to handle things. And you can read up on it a lot, and then have another source tell you that everything you just read was a bunch of B.S… All for something that’s going away the second these judges vote.
I’m going to sit this one out – hopefully on a Mexican beach.
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I read an article someplace that suggested that Roberts changed his mind, in part, because he was worried about the perception of the Court.
Tell us more. What perception?
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That the court is too political. . . .If that were the case the first ACA case should have been decided the way it is and in this case the exchange subsidiaries should be gutted.
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That the court is too political. . . .If that were the case the first ACA case should have been decided the way it is and in this case the exchange subsidiaries should be gutted.
Exactly - and that while all justices are politically nominated, Roberts really fights for a court free of politics. Easier said than done with the four to his left and the four to his right.
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I think he has the most 9-0 decisions since like the 40’s . . . .What they are doing is making hyper-narrow rulings that they can all agree on instead of broad statements like earlier Courts.
Am I the only one that just doesn’t have the energy to follow this crap anymore? You have to consider at a gazillion issues, view the short, medium, and long term consequences, and then get into the legal intricacies and nuances of how judges are supposed to handle things. And you can read up on it a lot, and then have another source tell you that everything you just read was a bunch of B.S… All for something that’s going away the second these judges vote.
I’m going to sit this one out – hopefully on a Mexican beach.
I still follow, but I’ve given up any hope of this going away or even improving in the near future. But listening to the analysis of this thing pretty much left me where my last post was. I listened to Mark Levin last night and can delve into the details, he can even make an argument for the original intent of the constitution, etc, but it is really just an academic exercise that just pisses you off when the outcome you think should happen doesn’t. This country is fucked and this was just a harbinger of it. We have a president who would piss on the constitution if it wasn’t locked away and we have a congress that doesn’t respect protocol. Its game over man, game over. Now the only thing to look forward to is total collapse.
I’ve been looking into this a lot as it effects how I do my job. I’m guessing challengers lose by 1 vote.
I only read the media blogs that are reporting whats going on, its unreal how bad the liberal judges are hammering the challengers and no one was hammering the defendent. I truely hope the judges actually do their job and take an unpolitical approach on this and make the right decision.
As I have no legal background so I will ask the lawyers here, if this ruled against the challenger, will it open up a can of worms on any other laws with ‘typos’?
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Am I the only one that just doesn’t have the energy to follow this crap anymore? You have to consider at a gazillion issues, view the short, medium, and long term consequences, and then get into the legal intricacies and nuances of how judges are supposed to handle things. And you can read up on it a lot, and then have another source tell you that everything you just read was a bunch of B.S… All for something that’s going away the second these judges vote.
I’m going to sit this one out – hopefully on a Mexican beach.
I was thinking same thing last night, while watching a show on ISIS (as just the most recent extremist group in a perpetual line up), and latest gun violence incident, etc. - - - except I was wondering about British Columbia as the staggerers will likely head south.
Might be a 6-3 or a 5-4 against challengers. Don’t really see it having too much impact on other case law. Markets are expecting that the challengers will lose (hospital stocks rallied).
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Might be a 6-3 or a 5-4 against challengers. Don’t really see it having too much impact on other case law. Markets are expecting that the challengers will lose (hospital stocks rallied).
I dunno. The usual suspects have taken their respective, anticipated positions. Roberts and Kennedy are the only two wild cards. If you watched Kennedy’s questions – all of them – he seemed leaning toward the idea that the language of the ACA dealing with the subsidies and the exchanges was clear enough that the Court would have no choice but to rule against the Government. However, Kennedy did raise the coercion issue asking Carvin whether conditioning subsidies on accepting the federal exchanges wasn’t coercion by the federal government. He kept referring to “the dynamics of federalism.”
Alito referenced the 1982 case Northern Pipeline v. Marathon Oil during which the Court held the decision in abeyance for 3 months to give Congress a chance to fix the pertinent legislation. That is a possibility, albeit a long shot.
If my life depended on it, I would have to say 6-3 against the challengers. Kennedy will not be on the losing end of this one, so, he will determine which way Kennedy is going to go and join him. But, I think there is still a good possibility it will go 6-3 against the government. I will be quite suprised if it is not 6-3 either way.
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But, I think there is still a good possibility it will go 6-3 against the government. I will be quite surprised if it is not 6-3 either way.
You must mean 5-4 against government. Four of the justices were pretty dubious about the challenge, Roberts and Kennedy are the only ones in play. I could see them split (it is easy to join a minority dissent that doesn’t change the outcome as a form of “protest”). I will go out on a short limb, and guess 5-4 against challengers, with Kennedy in concurrence and Roberts penning a separate dissent.
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Somebody explain to me how you arrive at anything other than 9-0 against the Government without sophistry.
It’s pretty fucking simple the law was written in plain English and there’s supporting evidence (more so than not) that the law was written as intended (no scrivener’s error).
It’s unbelievable to me that this is even before the court (technically it’s more unbelievable that the IRS decided to ignore the law especially when you read the memos involving the first drafts of the regulations that explicitly laid out that the Government’s current position is false).
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So, what do you think the decision will be? Not “should be” but what it is likely to be in real-life? There are ample arguments for both sides, whether you choose to admit them or not.
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So, what do you think the decision will be? Not “should be” but what it is likely to be in real-life? There are ample arguments for both sides, whether you choose to admit them or not.
No way this goes against the government it would mean the end of the ACA. It will be against the challengers based on the “They didn’t mean it that way”/“It’s a typo” ruling.
~Matt
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But, I think there is still a good possibility it will go 6-3 against the government. I will be quite surprised if it is not 6-3 either way.
You must mean 5-4 against government. Four of the justices were pretty dubious about the challenge, Roberts and Kennedy are the only ones in play. I could see them split (it is easy to join a minority dissent that doesn’t change the outcome as a form of “protest”). I will go out on a short limb, and guess 5-4 against challengers, with Kennedy in concurrence and Roberts penning a separate dissent.
I’m sorry, yes, you are correct. My math is off today. IMO, it will either be 6-3 against the challengers or 5-4 against the government.
Gov: Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan Sotomayor
Challengers: Scalia, Alito, Thomas
Wild cards: Kennedy, Roberts.
I still think Roberts will go whichever way Kennedy goes.