Supreme Court watch

Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, survives, again.

Housing also won.

Four left for a big day in Supreme Court action

SCOTUSblog

 

It was 6-3 in favor, too. Awesome. I'm reading Scalia's butthurt dissent as we speak.

 

Boo-yeah.

 

And as the Lord giveth, He taketh away.

Scotus Blog says no more opinions today, expect more on Friday and a Monday session.

 

Translation: Health insurance company lobbyists said "back off and shut up."

 

I think for Roberts at least it was more not wanting the Court to be Issue Number One in the election next year, with him cast as the designated villain by the Democratic candidate.

 

My law school classmate and co-worker, who I consider a friend, is a Scalia clerk this term. Rough week for him. He did get to witness Scherzer's no-hitter in person, though, so it's not all bad.

 

Holy hell, whoda thunk it. I was expecting either 5-4 the other way, or some kind of bizarro split-the-baby 5-4 decision with several key poison pill exceptions/ exemptions.

 

"SCOTUScare." Scalia. The man is an angry genius.

 

I'm hoping we get the gay marriage ruling (which I've more confident about than this one) last to end the session on a high note.

I think the business community has a lot of sway with Roberts.

 

I had no idea how the votes were going to fall, but the legal analysis for the two sides is not a big surprise. This isn't constitutional law. It's statutory interpretation. If the justices wanted to uphold ACA for whatever reason, they find the phrase "exchange established by the State" ambiguous, so the "by the State" part can be interpreted by a broader look at the statutory construct and legislative intent. If they don't, they apply basic statutory construction rules to rule that "by the State" means "by the State."

As a tax lawyer, I had to laugh at his reasoning if Congress had intended to limit credits to state exchanges they would have done it somewhere prominent, not in a "sub-sub-sub section of the Tax Code."

 

I can think of a lot of people now who think he's the designated villain. Bitterly unhappy with this decision, but it just means it comes down to 2016.