Results, Not Process
Tom Maguire, engaging in Principled Opposition to “judicial activists” who came up with the idea that marriage discrimination is inconsistent with the equal protection of the laws: “I just wish that we could have a bit more respect for the democratic process and settle this in legislatures rather than employing this Democratic process of legislating through the courts.”
Shorter Tom Maguire, today: “I don’t care about the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, I don’t like the mandate provisions of the ACA, so they must be unconstitutional! How dare the courts not intervene to strike down the legislation passed by democratically elected majorities and supermajorities!”
Admittedly, as I’ve said before, part of me wishes that Maguire’s position (although I believe it is very wrong as a matter of constitutional law) would prevail, because holding the mandate unconstitutional would (given the other plainly constitutional and very popular provisions requiring that insurers not deny insurance based on pre-existing conditions) destroy the private insurance markets, which would just lead to the state-run insurance that has proven in many other countries to provide better results for less money. Which, again, would be clearly constitutional unless you want to argue that Medicare, Social Security, etc. are also unconstitutional. So, hey, good luck libertarian litigators! Try to get DOMA struck down while you’re at it.
as I’ve said before, part of me wishes that Maguire’s position (although I believe it is very wrong as a matter of constitutional law) would prevail, because holding the mandate unconstitutional would (given the other plainly constitutional and very popular provisions requiring that insurers not deny insurance based on pre-existing conditions) destroy the private insurance markets, which would just lead to the state-run insurance that has proven in many other countries to provide better results for less money.
I wouldn’t assume that that would be the outcome at all. Indeed I suspect that our legislators would just fall back to the status quo. This is doubly true if the GOP is in charge when the expected collapse occurs. Now eventually that system will collapse as well but I see little evidence that legislators, responding to a crisis other than one involving danger to the wealth of rich people, will do the most reasonable thing. Questioning market efficiencies is just not something most of our national legislators are wired to do no matter how badly “the market” screws things up. Their response to the most recent financial crisis should be evidence enough of that.
No doubt about that. Maybe we could convince Obama that someone at Goldman Sachs can’t afford health insurance; it’d be Medicare for all inside of a week.
Politically, it would be virtually impossible to repeal the pre-existing requirement conditions once they’re entrenched.
once they’re entrenched
In other words, let’s have this conversation again in about three years.
Scott is far too optimistic about the likely outcome. my guess is that the numbers of uninsured would skyrocket as the reactionaries will not under any circumstances allow a public plan.
As the number of uninsured skyrocket the reactionaries may start losing elections- it did happen once before you know…
The Repubs had a 270-164 edge in 1928, lost 52 seats in 1930 and 101 in 1932 and 14 more in 1934 and 15 more in 1936 (that was there low point).
If the number of uninsureds skyrocket due to the Repubs, and the unemployed rise due to their budget cuts – and those unemployed don’t get unemployment benefits- you will see a dramatic shift in voting patterns- the ideologues won’t change one way or the other- but everyone else will.
If you promise them that at Jesus’ name every knee shall bend, that they’ll get to keep their guns, and that They will know and keep their place, the voters will guarantee that you’re never more than about forty votes away from control of the House.
1936-style Congressional majorities will never happen given our present cold Civil War (or is it Civil cold War?)
I’d like to know what would happen if the Court strikes down the mandate and says that because the mandate was so intricately related with the rest of the health insurance bill, it will strike down the entire bill, restrictions on denials of coverage and all.
I’m not sure what the protocol is for striking down an entire bill as opposed to just one portion. But it seems like a possibility.
Let me guess: Mr. Maguire is a strict Constitutionalist.
“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. ”
And so on.
Tom Maguire’s schtick is to write really crackpot things (the idea that the ACA is unconstitutional is, for him, pretty tame) in a tone that is, in contrast to other sites from whose views Maguire’s are perfectly indistinguishable, reserved, even urbane. So it’s no wonder he’s popular on the right, as he’s one of the few of his faction who can form a complete sentence without spraying his interlocutor with saliva.
I especially enjoyed his efforts to be the reasonable, moderate, thinking man’s birther.
He is indeed the King of the Pointless Nitpick. “Observe this misplaced comma — can we now say it is totally out of the question that Malcolm X is Obama’s father? I’m just raising the issue for the purposes of having civil debate.”
so, tell me: did tom maguire find it within himself to rise up with legislative-nased fury at the roberts’ court activist finding that corporate personhood allowed money to distort elections in a way that no legislature had ever previously thought acceptable?
That’s crazy talk. Obviously, courts should defer to the democratic process when voters want a conservative result, but should feel free to overrule the democratic process when voters want the liberal result.
If that isn’t evenhanded, blind justice, what is?
You’re forgetting the extra amendment in the teabagger Constitution: “None of the above shall apply to anything that we disagree with, especially the whole ‘freedom of speech’ bit.” They’ll tell you it used to be in their, but the liberal media has hidden it, or something…
Listening to these people talk about the Constitution is like listening to my dear sweet 60 year old mother try to talk about how the internet works.
Now be fair. I am quite certain that your mother makes far more sense than any of these rightwing yahoos is even capable of.
[...] gets support, of a sort, from Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns and Money: “Part of me wishes that Maguire’s position [...]
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[...] Results, Not Process : Lawyers, Guns & Money [...]