Will the Supreme Court Strike Down Health Care Reform?
In short, I think it’s highly unlikely. The big difference between Citizens United and a potential commerce clause challenge is that the Court had a steady trend of being more aggressive in applying First Amendment libertarianism to campaign finance, while its commerce clause jurisprudence hasn’t been trending in this direction, stopping with striking down a silly, redundant gun law and a little-used remedy in fairly important legislation it otherwise left intact. It’s not, exactly, that the Court wouldn’t contradict what it said in Raich. Rather, it’s that a Court that would strike down health care reform would have continued to strike down more and more important legislation.
Jack Balkin was on this a while ago….
An anthology
Well, maybe. On the other hand I think there’s a danger in underestimating the degree to which this Court is willing to cast aside precedent and prestige to reach any nakedly partisan result they may desire.
I guess the advantage to democrat’s dragging their feet and the process taking a year is that there is no doubt that it has been hashed out by the representatives of the people for all to see. The Citizens United case may be even more important, but certainly not as well known. If they struck down heath care after all of this political wrangling the political repercussions would be very high.
“Rather, it’s that a Court that would strike down health care reform would have continued to strike down more and more important legislation.” For God’s sake, don’t tempt them. As Oscar Wilde said: “I can resist anything but temptation.”
Appointing twenty new judges to the court ought to take care of any problems the current court wants to cause.
I assume you are talking about the guns near schools case and Virgina v Morrison. I seriously doubt that even this court would fuck with the #1 priority of the elected branches.
BTW, the new site is fucking slow (unless its just me)
[...] Will the Supreme Court strike down health care reform? Probably not. Jon Chait, however, points to another reason to worry: [...]
I think four of these justices would have no problem voting against the elected branch’s top priority. That’s where the WH’s pushback on the court right now makes sense.
They may need the public pressure to start now, to keep the others (read: Kennedy) uncomfortable with the idea of the Court simply being a second-chance legislature for Republicans.
This discomfort doesn’t seem to apply to determining Presidential elections. Why would it apply to an industry that makes up to a fifth of the economy?