Justice Dept. to SCOTUS on Obamacare: Don’t overturn entire law
Justice Dept. to SCOTUS on Obamacare: Don’t overturn entire law
Posted by ZIP on Friday, January 27, 2012, at 7:15 pm | 
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Justice Dept. to SCOTUS on Obamacare: Don’t overturn entire law
Posted by ZIP on Friday, January 27, 2012, at 7:15 pm |
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The Supreme Court can throw out an entire act of Congress if any part is unconstitutional. It cannot, however, re-enact those portions of the law that it feels Congress meant to be enacted in the hypothetical scenario that part of it was ruled unconstitutional. That is legislative power, and only Congress has it.
The only time SCOTUS can throw out a partial law is if Congress said it could. In this case, Congress withheld that permission. It is the will of Congress that the law stand or fall as a whole.
Nothing anyone says can change that. If SCOTUS throws out only part of Obamacare, it will have usurped the powers exclusively granted to Congress under Article I.
“Other provisions can operate independently and would still advance Congress’s core goals of expanding coverage, improving public health and controlling costs even if the minimum coverage provision were held unconstitutional,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
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When a president decides to alter a piece of legislation to suit his own tastes, that legislation must go back to the legislature to be re-argued. The line-item-veto was found to be unconstitutional because it bypasses routine, and it grants legislative power to the executive branch. (It violates the separation of powers.)
ObamaCare supporters FAILED to include a severability clause, and they now want to re-write the legislation. By all rights, shouldn’t the altered legislation go back to the legislature to be re-approved?
“But the Obama administration argued that the states and NFIB didn’t make a convincing argument that Congress would not have enacted any piece of the law without the mandate.”
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Pardon me, but that isn’t for the Executive branch to decide.
It isn’t for the judiciary either. Congress knows how to write severability clauses – the Supreme Court enforces them all the time. They would have to violate every relevant canon of legal construction as well as firm precedent in order to do that.
It would be like Roe v Wade all over again.
Get rid of it all. And the head of the DOJ too.
I’m worried about this case. It should be an open and shut issue, but the Justice Department is relying heavily on Justice Scalia’s previous ruling in Gonzalez v. Raich heavily in their arguement for why it should be legal. Gonzalez v. Raich was already a gross abuse of the powers granted to congress under the commerce clause, and if this case is ruled constitutional it will give the federal government the power to do anything it wants. So the question is, will Scalia overturn his own ruling?
It is my understanding that there isn’t a severability clause in the law. If that is true, the SCOTUS DOES NOT have to rule on only one part and leave the others standing. Without severability, the entire bill/law can be overturned. I would think that the Justice Department knows that.
Sheesh, does anyone think he gives a flyin flip about the Constitution let alone the Congressional authority?????? I just can not believe that he has gotten away with as much as he has.
@The Original
Without that clause the Supreme Court MUST throw out the entire law.
So they know it is unConstitutional and hoped that they had the votes because 4 Judges really don’t care for the Constitution, preferring a government by judicial tribunal.
hoodaticus.. A+
Remember when you were busy “driving health care down the Republican throats”? Remember all the creative legislative shenanigans and outright bribery you had to pull to get it through? Remember how the severance clause was going to be added in conference between the House and Senate? Remember when you went total scorched earth legislative nuclear war and passed it through reconciliation, bypassing conference? Yeah, that. Consequences.
Talk about arrogance– the Obama DOJ DARES to instruct the Supreme Court of the United States how to do THEIR job? They are already attempting to conduct a war in the media in an attempt to influence “da judge”. Disturbing.
hoodaticus says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:22 pm
That’s true. Why doesn’t Congress and the DOJ already know that?
Sounds to me like they are not expecting a favorable ruling from scotus. Kill the entire pile of sheet!
The Original says:
January 28, 2012 at 10:33 am
hoodaticus says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:22 pm
That’s true. Why doesn’t Congress and the DOJ already know that?
Because they don’t read anything. I still contend that legislation which nobody who voted to enacted it even bothered to read, cannot be considered a law. Legislation so volumunous and complex that no citizen, congressman, or medical professional in the entire country, including the president himself, has either the time or the mental capacity to decipher, cannot be considered a law even if enacted. How can the citizenry be expected to abide by a law designed such that no citizen can understand it?
@Axe
next amendment that needs to be passed is one that is basically if you can’t read it then it will not be passed.
How is the legislation sustainable if the key provision is missing? Of course, one provision punishes states that try to pass malpractice reform, so you know the trial lawyers will spank the Prez if they lose that.