{"id":17711,"date":"2012-07-10T16:11:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T21:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=17711"},"modified":"2012-07-10T16:11:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T21:11:32","slug":"best-of-the-blogs-aftermath-of-the-supreme-courts-ruling-on-the-affordable-care-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/07\/best-of-the-blogs-aftermath-of-the-supreme-courts-ruling-on-the-affordable-care-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of the Blogs: Aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Ruling on the Affordable Care Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act has generated a great deal of “instant analysis” on the web.\u00a0 This post will survey some of the noteworthy commentary.<\/p>\n

I have not read anything that has caused me to re-evaluate my initial reaction <\/a>to the decision.\u00a0 I thought that\u00a0neither Justice Robert’s Commerce Clause analysis nor his Taxing Power analysis was particularly compelling, yet I was struck by the manner in which\u00a0the Chief Justice managed to construct a 5-4 majority that paralleled Marbury v. Madison<\/em> insofar as the ruling\u00a0chastized a sitting President with\u00a0its rhetoric while simultaneously handing the President a major policy victory.\u00a0 Upon further reflection, I still believe that future Supreme Court justices\u00a0will find it quite easy to evade the boundaries\u00a0that the language of the NFIB v. Sebelius<\/em> decision purports to place on federal government power.\u00a0\u00a0All it will take is a change in one vote for a future Court to designate the opinion’s Commerce Clause analysis as “dicta,” or else to find the requisite level of coercion lacking the next time that\u00a0Congress’ deploys\u00a0its\u00a0Spending Power in a similar fashion.\u00a0 While the rhetoric of the opinion promises\u00a0doctrinal limits on federal power, the actual holdings of the decision\u00a0fail to deliver on that promise.<\/p>\n

John Yoo has come to the same conclusion.\u00a0 In an op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal <\/a>he considers\u00a0the\u00a0spin that some political conservatives have placed on the Court’s ruling — that it was a victory for the advocates of limited governent — and finds these\u00a0assertions to be no more than a\u00a0“hollow hope.”\u00a0 He rejects the comparison to Marbury v. Madison<\/em>, and instead\u00a0compares the opinion of Justice Roberts to the “switch in time” that led the Supreme Court to uphold New Deal Era legislation during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration.\u00a0 By frustrating the Supreme Court’s\u00a0best chance since the 1930s\u00a0to\u00a0reverse what Yoo views as an anti-originalist\u00a0acceptance of\u00a0broad legislative\u00a0power,\u00a0Justice Roberts has let Professor Yoo down.<\/p>\n

If anyone is to blame for the failure of the conservative wing of the Court to seize this opportunity to recalibrate the scales of federal and state power , David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy and Michael Ramsey of the University of San Diego\u00a0place a great deal of the blame <\/a>on the shoulders of Justices Scalia and Kennedy.\u00a0 After all, by voting to uphold Congress’ power to regulate home-grown marijuana in Gonzales v. Raich<\/em>, these two erstwhile conservatives undermined the momentum that had been generated by the earlier Lopez<\/em> and Morrison<\/em> cases.\u00a0 Due to the existence of the Raich<\/em> case, and the inconclusive nature of the Court’s reasoning in NFIB v. Sebelius<\/em>, the scope of congressional\u00a0authority under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause remains muddled at best.<\/p>\n

One wonders whether\u00a0Justice Scalia, in particular,\u00a0regrets his\u00a0vote in the Raich<\/em> case.\u00a0Noah Kristula-Green writing at the DailyBeast <\/a>looks at Justice Scalia’s career on the Court, and finds a Justice whose judicial philosophy has evolved.\u00a0\u00a0Political conservatives once argued\u00a0in favor of originalism as a vehicle for\u00a0constraining\u00a0judges who might otherwise\u00a0impose their personal policy preferences on the public.\u00a0 Today, these same conservatives\u00a0still embrace the tools of originalist analysis, however now the purpose is\u00a0not to police judicial activisim but instead\u00a0to\u00a0advance a favored\u00a0economic outcome.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, John Mikhail at Balkinization <\/a>challenges the conservative argument that an originalist mode of constitutional analysis inevitably\u00a0leads to the conclusion that the Constitution limits the power of Congress to address national problems.\u00a0 By focusing on James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall, he presents an originalist argument in favor of a broad construction of the Necessary and Proper Clause.\u00a0 I particularly like the link that Mikhail\u00a0makes between the philosophies of James Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, and the latter’s conception of federal power during the Progressive Era.<\/p>\n

All of the foregoing may seem to range far afield from the nuts and bolts of the actual decision on the Affordable Care Act.\u00a0 Blockbuster decisions such as this tend to become a prism through which advocates and academics alike seek to interpret the broader course of political\u00a0history.<\/p>\n

At Scotusblog, David Kopel summarizes the decision <\/a>in “law review” style, the way that next year’s First Year students might describe the case in their class outlines.\u00a0 Randy Barnett breaks down, and criticizes, Justice Robert’s analysis under the Taxing Power in this post <\/a>at The Volokh Conspiracy.\u00a0\u00a0Jonathan Adler performs another\u00a0post mortem <\/a>at the same blog, focusing on instances where Justice Robert has previously\u00a0upheld statutes against constitutional challenge by adopting\u00a0a strained “saving construction” of the legislative language.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the future of the healthcare debate, Brad DeLong’s blog has the transcript <\/a>of a panel discussion\u00a0reviewing\u00a0the economic and legal challenges surrounding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, now that its constitutionality has been upheld.\u00a0 And over at Balkinization,\u00a0Joey Fishkin has an excellent post <\/a>on the political implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the run up to November’s presidential election and beyond.<\/p>\n

All in all, it has been an eventful end to the Supreme Court’s term.\u00a0 The NFIB v. Sebelius<\/em> ruling will continue to be the subject of analysis and debate for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act has generated a great deal of “instant analysis” on the web.\u00a0 This post will survey some of the noteworthy commentary. I have not read anything that has caused me to re-evaluate my initial reaction to the decision.\u00a0 I thought that\u00a0neither Justice Robert’s Commerce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,126,60,68,44,122,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-interpretation","category-constitutional-law","category-health-care","category-judges-judicial-process","category-political-processes-rhetoric","category-public","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}