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October 3, 2011 in Nation/World
Health care law looms over new Supreme Court term
FILE -In this Oct. 8, 2010 file photo justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a group portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington. Seated from left are Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Standing, from left are Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito Jr., and Elena Kagan. The nine justices of the Supreme Court, who serve without seeking election, soon will have to decide whether to insert themselves into the center of the nation’s presidential campaign next year. The high court begins its new term Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, and President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which affects almost every American, is squarely in its sights.
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WASHINGTON — The nine justices of the Supreme Court, who serve without seeking election, soon will have to decide whether to insert themselves into the center of the presidential campaign next year.
The high court began its new term today, and President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which affects almost everyone in the country, is squarely in its sights.
The Obama administration’s request last week that the justices resolve whether the health care law is constitutional makes it more likely than not that they will deliver their verdict by June 2012, just as Obama and his Republican opponent charge toward the fall campaign.
Already, GOP presidential contenders use virtually every debate and speech to assail Obama’s major domestic accomplishment, which aims to extend health insurance to more than 30 million people now without coverage.
If as now expected the justices agree to review the law’s constitutionality, those deliberations would certainly define the court’s coming term. Their decision could rank as the court’s most significant since the December 2000 ruling that effectively sealed George W. Bush’s election as president.
Health care is only one of several issues that the court could hear that would make for a “fantastic Supreme Court term,” said former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, now in private practice at the Hogan Lovells law firm.
Other high-profile cases on the horizon concern immigration and affirmative action, hot-button issues at any time and only more so in an election year.
Less likely, though still with a chance to make it to the court this year are cases involving gay marriage and the landmark Voting Rights Act that some Southern states argue has outlived its usefulness.
Decisions about whether to even to consider health care, affirmative action and immigration are a month off or more.
In the meantime, the justices will take up a First Amendment case looking at the regulation of television broadcasts as well as a couple of appeals involving the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. One of those cases is a digital age dispute over the government’s power to track a suspect’s movement using a GPS device, without first getting a judge’s approval.
Among the cases involving criminal defendants is one from an inmate awaiting execution in Alabama who missed a deadline to appeal his death sentence because the big-firm lawyers in New York who had been handling his case for free moved on to new jobs and letters from the court clerk sat in the firm’s mailroom before being returned to sender.
The case of Cory Maples, convicted 15 years ago in the shooting deaths of two men, presents the question: “How much poor representation can one criminal defendant receive” before it violates the Constitution? said University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill.
A lawsuit over a baby’s passport also will be before the court in a case that has a taste of Middle East politics and a fight between the president and Congress.
Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky’s parents want his U.S. passport to list his birthplace as Israel even though U.S. policy does not recognize the once-divided city as belonging to Israel. Congress, though, passed a law in 2002 giving Jerusalem-born U.S. citizens that option. Presidents of both parties have directed the State Department to ignore the law, saying it wrongly interferes with the president’s powers.
Just over a third of the 48 cases the court has so far agreed to hear are of interest to the business sector, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But that list includes few big-ticket cases, unlike last term’s victories for business interests in major cases seeking to limit consumer and employee access to the courts. Foremost among those was the decision to throw out a class-action lawsuit on behalf of up to 1.6 million female Wal-Mart employees.
The absence of high-profile business cases comes as something of a relief to Allison Zieve, the general counsel for Public Citizen, a not-for-profit group that calls itself a countervailing force to corporate power.
“The court seems more open to the plaintiffs’ side in smaller civil rights cases. Smaller cases may be better for consumers,” Zieve said.
The nation’s major broadcasters are focused on one case that has the potential to reshape regulation of the airwaves. The federal appeals court in New York threw out the Federal Communications Commission’s rules that apply when children are likely to be watching. That includes a ban on the use of curse words as well as fines against broadcasters who showed a woman’s nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of ABC’s “NYPD Blue.”
The television networks argue that the policy is inconsistently applied and outdated, taking in only broadcast television and leaving unregulated the same content if transmitted on cable TV or over the Internet.
“Singling out broadcast television doesn’t make much more sense anymore,” said Jonathan Cohn, a former Justice Department official. Cohn’s law firm, Sidley, Austin, represents Fox Television Stations in the case. The administration is defending the FCC’s indecency policy.
In an earlier version of the same case, the justices and lawyers discussed the policy for an hour without uttering any of the offending words.
The court is beginning its second year with the same complement of justices after consecutive terms of welcoming new members, Sonia Sotomayor and then Elena Kagan.
Those two justices, on the liberal-leaning side of the court, voted together on almost every case last year. The same was true for Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito on the other side of the ideological spectrum.
Last year, Kagan sat out seven of the 12 cases the court heard in its first month because of her prior work as the Obama administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer. This October, she will be absent from just one case, involving Congress’ power to give copyright protection to works by foreign composers, directors and other artists, among them Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” that long have been in the public domain.
There have been various calls for Kagan, as well as for Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, to sit out the health care case, but no indication that any of those justices intends to do so. Critics cite Kagan’s former administration position, Scalia’s address to the U.S. House tea party caucus, which opposes the law, and the public advocacy against the law by Thomas’ wife, Ginny.
Also unlikely in the next year, with the presidential election imminent, is a retirement, At 78, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the oldest justice, but has said repeatedly she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Stocks plummet as outlook in Europe dims 
Dazzeetrader11 on October 03 at 10:36 a.m.
Obama has caused this. Never have seen a more divisive president. Healthcare, race, ruining further an economy…he has done nothing right. Just the worst president I’ve ever seen.
His legacy will be mostly garbage and a course of what not to do.
johnclarke on October 03 at 11:01 a.m.
Oh, go jump in a lake Daisy. I just talked with my Doctor’s PA today, she is a highly trained health care provider. Guess what? She can’t afford a health care plan because they are a stand alone office and individual plans are priced so high she has to choose between food and health care. Is this the kind of country you dream about? Let’s assume you actually own a business and are wealthy as you blather on about. (I personally think you are collecting social security and Medicare) Do you want your imaginary employees to have access to basic health care, or would you prefer they just drop dead and you replace them?
While I applaud the protests stirring up all over the country, I’d like to see some pitchforks and torches. How’s your exit strategy? Heading to that imaginary factory in Poland?
tobiasg on October 03 at 11:25 a.m.
Such little attention given to Clarence Thomas. Not only does his wife receive tons of cash in the way of bribes for her husband, he has broken ethical standards and laws by failing to report the income.
How many cases has HE sat out because of conflict of interest?
WHS on October 03 at 11:50 a.m.
Thank God President Obama has caused this. America is no longer the laughing stock of the world and thanks to President Obama we are not in a total depression. We have Health Care Reform. Thanks to President Obama, the American people are waking up to the abuses by the corporations. President Obama is changing the way America thinks. He is a man who is keeping his promises.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/
Dizzee, President Obama will leave a legacy of change! A change for the better. President Obama is working hard to bring America back to forefront as the greatest country in the world. It is only those of you stuck in the mire and resistant to change that are crying and bemoaning all that this administration has accomplished. And it could be so much more…
Obama/Biden 2012 It’s working!
WHS
johnclarke on October 03 at 12:01 p.m.
Obama/Biden 2012 It’s working! in spite of the Republicans….
Coffee on October 03 at 12:20 p.m.
The median expected salary for a typical Physician Assistant - Medical in the United States is $89,878
http://www1.salary.com/Physician-Assistant-Medical-salary.html
johnclarke on October 03 at 12:33 p.m.
Now show me that number for Spokane, and btw I don’t think this person was making it up to tell interesting stories.
Dazzeetrader11 on October 03 at 12:42 p.m.
Hey Clarke…make some synaptic connections. The PA can buy insurance if she wants. You.as usual…miss the point. Old brains do that. The US cgovernment cannot force anyone to buy anything. Got that? PA story doesn’t matter to the law. No matter how dire your PA’s nonsense story is, it’s got nothing to do with the discussion. Got that Frost top? It’s irrelivant to the discussion.
johnclarke on October 03 at 12:53 p.m.
Not really, Daisy. Health care should be affordable, and it’s not. The problem is the heartless profit whores that seem to think that squeezing massive profits out of us, while providing substandard care is perfectly normal. Guess what, it’s not normal; it’s basically a crime what the profiteers are doing. Yet you baggers (who are most likely collecting Medicare) keep beating the drum to the music supplied by your masters.
Never mind the rest of the modern world can provide health care for everyone at like half the cost of the US. Keep living your dream.
How is your factory in Poland?
johnclarke on October 03 at 1:00 p.m.
“The US cgovernment cannot force anyone to buy anything.”
So, just to hopefully kill this argument forever (not likely). Other countries handle this issue with what they call “taxes” and everyone just gets Health Care. Here in the US, since the insurance companies own the politicians, they call it Health Insurance. That way they can collect their blood money to sustain the huge overhead they merrily rape us for.
WHS on October 03 at 1:04 p.m.
…1792, just three years after ratifying the constitution, Congress (including many of those same founding fathers) passed a law requiring every able-bodied male to purchase a firearm.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia…That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball…
WHS
misjustice on October 03 at 1:16 p.m.
Also, in 1798, President Adams…Mandated health insurance for sailors…
WillyPeter on October 03 at 2:36 p.m.
WHS…..and here in Wyoming, you’ll be gratified to know that the citizens are doing that still….:-)
bdr on October 03 at 5:34 p.m.
If healthcare law is overstepping and thrown out. Can you imagine the can of worms that opens for car insurance industry?
This will be a SLAM dunk case for Obama, it’ll pass faster than two shakes and a booty scoot.
johnclarke on October 03 at 7:33 p.m.
oooh that sounds pretty fast.
Dazzeetrader11 on October 03 at 10:05 p.m.
Supremes will blow it up as they should.
Have nothing to do with auto insurance. You can always opt to not drive or buy a car. Duh.
misjustice on October 03 at 10:21 p.m.
Yeah, just like you can opt not to have health or health care.
Duh!
tobiasg on October 03 at 10:31 p.m.
I love it. Dazzee is all worked up because she’s going to not make as much money screwing elderly and lower income and middle class folks.