GannonFan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:03 am
Finally read up on the case the SCOTUS is going to hear today regarding the ACA. I have to say, I'm amazed that this case was given as much press coverage as it did in the leadup to Barrett's nomination given how weak the case actually is. I don't think there's really any chance that the Court pulls down the entirety of the ACA over this act. Heck, I think Trump could appoint 9 all new justices to the Court and that group wouldn't invalidate all of the ACA based on this case. The media doesn't really do themselves or the public any justice when they blatantly use their biases to cover a story as they did on this prior to Barrett's nomination (as in saying that she's being put on the Court to rule in this case to pull the ACA down) when the reality is much different. I wouldn't be shocked if just Alito and Thomas are the only dissenters in this particular case, and possibly Gorsuch, but I'm sure he would likely write his own dissent rather than joining theirs. I think this is what they call a nothingburger.
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/93244133 ... as-enacted
You are 100% spot on.The ONLY reason this case is before the Supreme Court is because the Fifth Circuit, quite remarkably, bought into these arguments and purported to invalidate the whole of the ACA. This case isn't before the Supreme Court because the court members had any inclination to revisit the decision Court's prior decision in
Sebelius. But the Fifth Circuit forced the Supreme Court's hand by invalidating the ACA.
Gorsuch will not be a dissenter in this case. My bet is that Gorsuch -- who has previously expressed concerns about state AG standing to bring lawsuits like this one -- will conclude that the state AGs who attacked the law do not have standing to do so; and that the individual plaintiffs lack standing because they have no "injury in fact," that being that they were not harmed when congress fixed the individual mandate at $0. How can you be harmed if you have to pay nothing?
A number of the members of this Court, including Roberts, have expressed concerns about liberal applications of "standing" rules which allow for special interest groups and/or state AGs, to create largely theoretical reasons to attack legislative acts. A number of the court members are concerned that the federal courts are increasingly being drawn into political disputes as a result of litigation commenced by parties which "go out of their way" to incur injury simply so that they can attack legislation.
These court members believe that the federal judiciary should get back into the business of adjudicating
genuine cases in controversy arising naturally, in the ordinary course of events, brought by a plaintiff who has, unwillingly, suffered an injury as a result of a legislative act. They want to limit special interest groups from fabricating "controversies" that allow these groups to appoint themselves as roving monitors of Congress or the Executive.
These court members have likewise expressed concerns over partisan motivations of state AGs who have appointed themselves roving monitors of Congress or the Executive.
Gorsuch believes that proper challenges to federal legislation, or executive orders, should be brought by persons genuinely affected by the laws being challenged -- not by persons who have "volunteered" to claim otherwise avoidable injury. Not by special interest groups motivated by politics. Not by state AGs motivated by politics. By entertaining these "manufactured" claims, Gorsuch contends that the federal judiciary is allowing itself to become an extension of politics, and a tool of the politically motivated. He further contends that law evolves and grows in a more orderly and reasoned fashion when it is the result of adjudicating genuine cases in controversy.
This case is the worst of political litigation. In fact, the standing assertions of the Texas AG are pretty flimsy. But the California AG and others AG who intervened to defend the law didn't even question the standing of the Texas AG -- because these defending AGs, themselves, rely on such flimsy claims all the time.
I'm with Gorsuch on this one. Lack of standing.
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