Everyone Slow Down, Redux Edition
This is an update to our post earlier this morning about slowing down, digesting and getting things right before rushing to report.
CNN didn’t and instead ran banner headlines on its site about the Supreme Court striking down the individual mandate.
Fox too but, well, somehow that’s less surprising.
This is tagged “slow news movement.” I like that.
For those looking for some breezy summer reading. Here’s the end of the dissent:
The Constitution, though it dates from the founding of the Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevance to our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court to teach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most important ones, for which reason they alone were embodied in the original Constitution and not left to later amendment. The fragmentation of power produced by the structure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.
For the reasons here stated, we would find the Act invalid in its entirety. We respectfully dissent.
If Roberts does end up being the fifth and deciding vote to uphold Obamacare, Bush’s Supreme Court legacy will be regarded as a failure too. His reputation among conservatives will never recover.Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll • Suggesting, all the way back in March, that John Roberts would be the deciding vote on health care, based on an American Bar Association survey. Called it. (ht Andrew Sullivan)
Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it.The “money quote” from the individual mandate section of the health care decision, according to SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe.
In case you haven’t heard, CNN sorta screwed this up. The law was mostly upheld. (ht @BuzzfeedAndrew)
The individual mandate survives as a tax.SCOTUSblog, on the Health Care decision. More as we get it. EDIT: SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe says “The Medicaid provision is limited but not invalidated.” EDIT 2:
One of the speeches addresses a complete overturn of the law, while another is crafted as if the court strikes down the law’s individual mandate but upholds other provisions. The third speech, for if the court upholds the entire law, is more celebratory, according to [a person familiar with them].Obama has three health care speeches ready, depending on how the court decides in the next half hour.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. wasn’t the only one who choked during the Supreme Court’s health care hearings this past March: Max Mallory remembers ruefully the toll exacted on SCOTUSblog’s servers by Web readers hungry for updates.
“We went from receiving 40,000, 50,000 hits to receiving a million hits in a couple of days,” he said by telephone. “Our servers were overwhelmed. We never went down for an entire day but service slowed so much.”
This morning, the Supreme Court is expected to issue one of its most anticipated opinions since Bush v. Gore, on four points concerning the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). Mallory is SCOTUSblog’s deputy manager and the guy responsible for making sure it’s able to handle what promises to be an epic traffic spike.
Yesterday, the blog tweeted this: ”Here we go. 4 more web servers. 5 bloggers. 2 tech teams. $25k for 20 mins. #SCOTUS #ACA #teamlyle” Hope it stays up.
Fun fact: In addition to health care, the court will also issue rulings on two other cases Thursday. United States v. Alvarez centers around whether a law banning false claims about military honors received violates the First Amendment, while First American Financial Corp v. Edwards will determine whether homeowners who weren’t adversely affected by certain corrupt bank practices can still file suit anyway. Rulings on these two cases will be issued first, meaning that the health care decision probably won’t come out until around 10:15am EST or so.
From the piece:
So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial. He’s turned “judicial restraint” into an oxymoronic phrase. But what he did this week, when the court announced its decision on the Arizona immigration law, should be the end of the line.
Not content with issuing a fiery written dissent, Scalia offered a bench statement questioning President Obama’s decision to allow some immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay. Obama’s move had nothing to do with the case in question. Scalia just wanted you to know where he stood.
Agree? Disagree?
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We are [a] state and city that embraces diversity. Just because a few people passed a bill that is not reflective of the state, don’t stop doing business with us.Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton • Making a plea to the American consumer to not cut Arizona products out of their purchasing plans, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court upholding a central provision of the state’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070. (The court struck down most of the law, however.) Yesterday the court ruled that while warrantless searches are illegal, and undocumented immigrants are allowed to pursue work, Arizona police will indeed be permitted to check the citizenship status of anybody they stop. This has been an argument at the core of the SB 1070 controversy — converse to the bill’s supporters, who are vociferous in its defense, its critics maintain that it endorses and practically demands acts of racial profiling. Mayor Stanton is thus fearful about boycotts springing up that could hurt his city’s economy, much as those same boycotts and threats came pouring in when the controversial law was passed back in 2010. source (via • follow)
It is not clear at this stage and on this record that §2(B), in practice, will require state officers to delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify their immigration status. This would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. If the law only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption—at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives. Without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume §2(B) will be construed in a way that conflicts with federal law.
Translation: Police can still ask to see your proof of U.S. residency.
EDIT: But as Think Progress notes, this decision leaves room for this portion of the case to be decided more definitively later. If there is evidence that this is being used for racial profiling, it’s possible it could get struck down later.
The Court holds that the Eighth Amendment forbids a scheme of life in prison without possibility of parole for juveniles.SCOTUSblog, on a major not-health-care-related decision this morning. Hop over here to see the liveblog.
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