Two Years On: Obamacare

Sandra Day O'Connor was an utter hack.

She was a hack when I disagreed with the result of her fifth vote and she was a hack when I agreed with the result.

 

(1) I think you err in dismissing a labor issue during that era as not a social issue.

(2) Your comment about the Jehovah's Witness standing on his head, etc., is funny. There's a great 7th Circuit opinion by Judge Posner where he - clearly frustrated by the trail of breadcrumbs the Supreme Court has left him - vents about feeling like he's supposed to be getting out a tape measure to figure out the distance between the candy canes and the Christmas Tree at City Hall.

 

I agree that a 5-4 decision either way would be lamented by the losing side as another politically-motivated decision, done along partisan lines.

If it's even a 6-3 decision one way or the other, that argument goes out the window. The losing side will have no choice (no credible choice, anyway) except to grudgingly accept the court's decision and try to get their way through other, more constitutional means.

 

I think that 5-4 would be OK if, say, you had Kennedy in the dissent and Scalia or Roberts joining the majority. You just need somebody, anybody, to flip.

 

Am I misreading, or are some of you saying Scalia will vote to uphold the law?

 

There is a lot of speculation that he may. He and Roberts are certainly more likely to than Alito and Thomas. It's largely because he concurred in Gonzales v. Raich, an expansion of the commerce clause that otherwise fell along party lines.

 

I'll defer to you legal eagles, but I thought - based on some of his questioning - that he was firm in the strike it down camp.

 

I know what you mean, from the oral arguments. But I would caution again about putting too much stock in oral arguments. Also, no one on the bench asks more questions than Scalia. He really enjoys that part of the job. He likes to be a devil's advocate.

 

Congress should pass some laws that regulate the amount of oil that oil commodities firms can store. They can use Wickard v. Filburn as a precedent.

 

29 pages (so far). Completely enjoyed reading every post (even the ones I seriously disagree with).

What I want to know is this: When the liberal judges vote their beliefs, why is it so much less political than when the conservative judges vote their beliefs? And the idea that someone would switch to the other side just to keep the SC from being considered political is ludicrous.

 

Oh, that's not at all the case. This is a case-by-case examination. Thurgood Marshall was a political hack. John Paul Stevens was, largely, a political hack.