Carolyn Shapiro, frequent Oyez contributor and director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States, appeared on Chicago Tonight yesterday evening. When asked about the outcome, she correctly predicted the Court would uphold the individual mandate.
The blockbuster decision by the Court to uphold the controversial Individual Mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act relied on an argument that, until today, most of the media had entirely overlooked.
During the last 10 minutes of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s argument in March on the Individual Mandate, the government argued that the provision was a valid exercise of Congressional power under the Taxing Clause. The justices, including the author of today’s opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts, focused on the key concern with the argument: Why did Congress not simply call the penalty a tax?
The Court today issued a long, complex decision in the closely watched cases dealing with President Obama’s signature healthcare reform legislation. Oyez is working to assemble a simplified summary of the conclusion, but most provisions, including the controversial Individual Mandate, were upheld.
The Court doesn’t allow live broadcasts of its proceedings, and it won’t release the audio recordings of tomorrow’s opinion announcements until October, but you can still get play-by-play coverage of the Court’s decisions from our friends at SCOTUSblog, who will be live-blogging the Court’s session tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM EDT.
David Letterman highlights ten things you didn’t know about the Court.
Update: The Daily Beast chimes in with 11 real facts you probably didn’t know about the Court.
The Court today announced that the final session of the 2011 term will be this Thursday, June 28. This almost certainly means the Court will rule then on the closely watched cases involving President Obama’s signature healthcare reform legislation.
The Supreme Court today rejected most of the state of Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law as unconstitutionally infringing on the Federal government’s powers. While most of the law was struck down, one provision, which allows state law enforcement personell to inquire about immigration status where there is reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in the country illegally, was upheld, at least for now.
Oyez’s summary of the decision spells out exactly which provisions of the law the Court concluded were invalid.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the sentencing of two fourteen-year-old boys to life without parole violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
While the world awaits the Court’s ruling in The Affordable Care Act Cases with bated breath, Jeffrey Toobin takes a fascinating look at the behind the scenes wrangling during the Court’s review of Citizens United v. FEC. While reading Toobin’s piece, one wonders what’s going on now, as the Court reviews yet another landmark case.
For the last quarter century, the American public’s approval of the Supreme Court has been consistently high and generally more stable than approval ratings of the other branches of the Federal government. However, a Pew Research survey has detected a steady decline in the Court’s favorability that cuts across political party lines.