This week, President Obama’s signature health care bill, also known as “Obamacare,” is in front of the Supreme Court for review. The nation’s highest court could rule to uphold parts or all of it or to dismiss parts or all of it. But how will their ruling affect the 2012 presidential election?
IF THE SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE – it would be a huge win for President Obama. He spent a great deal of political capital getting the bill passed and a Supreme Court ruling in his favor would be a powerful vindication. Moreso, a positive ruling from the court would also remove the issue from the political debate in the fall. Republicans have been itching to use ObamaCare against the president in the general election. But if the court upholds the bill, Mr. Obama would no longer be the target. The Supreme Court would then be the deciding factor, removing the bulls eye from the president and placing it squarely on the court — and no Republican would dare challenge the Supreme Court on their final ruling. Although they would almost certainly try to repeal the law if they gained power in the fall.
IF THE SUPREME COURT DISMISSES OBAMACARE – it would be a blow to President Obama’s leadership, but not necessarily in the way you may think. Mr. Obama is a constitutional lawyer and a negative ruling from the court would question his legal knowledge in introducing such a bill. But the negative ruling would not necessarily be a bad thing for him in the fall election. An up or down court ruling would still water down the issue in the general election debate, limiting Republicans from utilizing what they believe to be their “trump card.”
On a side note, should Mitt Romney become the Republican nominee, he would also be a winner should the court dismiss the president’s signature health care bill. ObamaCare was primarily designed to be almost exactly like RomneyCare, which is the health care bill Mitt Romney once promoted while he was governor of Massachusetts. If the court strikes down ObamaCare, both President Obama and Mr. Romney could avoid having to discuss it in the fall, which could end up a win/win for both of their campaigns.
Conventional thinking says the Supreme Court doesn’t wish to touch this issue with a 10 foot pole. Interfering and overturning the law is something they’d much rather avoid and is not a huge part of the court’s history. So, many legal scholars believe they will take the position that since the law has already been passed. it will stay passed. Or in other words, they will uphold ObamaCare in an attempt to remain detached from the issue. Stay tuned…
"Conventional thinking says the Supreme Court doesn't wish to touch this issue with a 10 foot pole."I think that's probably an understatement. But this issue IS now before the Supreme Court. The Justices must rule on it and make no mistake about it..the outcome WILL have a Significant impact on the Presidential race and more specifically, on the perception of Pres. Obama's presidency.The truth is, of ALL the President's notable achievements I've expressed my disappointment before with what I feel was an absolute FAILURE on the part of the President and his team to adequately SELL "Obamacare" (explain how it works and its benefits ) to the American people."Obamacare" was supposed to be his "Signature" achivement and yet the effort of the President AND his team to treat it as such was, IMO, half-azzed at best. Call it arrogance or being just plain LAZY. I think it was mix of both. Now the President is forced to sweat this thing out…smh. Regardless of the outcome (and I hope it's positive), the President and his team Could have done better. The President and his team SHOULD have done better.
A few reax following yesterday's oral arguments……. CNN's Jeffery Toobin: "Today Was 'Train Wreck' for Health Reform Law"Today was a "train wreck" for the White House, said the network's legal analyst, according to Business Insider. "This law looks like it's going to be struck down. I'm telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong."Goldstein @ SCOTUSblog: “Based on the questions posed to Paul Clement, the lead attorney for the state challengers to the individual mandate, it appears that the mandate is in trouble. It is not clear whether it will be struck down, but the questions that the conservative justices posed to Clement were not nearly as pressing as the ones they asked to Solicitor General Verrilli," he writes. "It will be close. Very close."Editor's Blog TPM: "A reminder that this sort of tea-leaf reading can be overdone and misleading. But it isn’t necessarily. The current court is a lot more direct in its questioning with fewer rhetorical feints than courts past."Politico: "All of the conservative justices asked such tough questions about the individual mandate during Tuesday’s arguments that it’s no longer clear that the Obama administration can get a fifth vote to uphold it," writes Jennifer Haberkorn and David Nather. […]Read: http://www.newser.com/story/142814/today-was-trai…
<span>SCOTUSblog: "Argument recap: It is Kennedy’s call" Analysis If Justice Anthony M. Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government’s defense of the new individual health insurance mandate, or can think of one on his own, the mandate may well survive. If he does, he may take Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and a majority along with him. But if he does not, the mandate is gone. That is where Tuesday’s argument wound up — with Kennedy, after first displaying a very deep skepticism, leaving the impression that he might yet be the mandate’s savior. If the vote had been taken after Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., stepped back from the lectern after the first 56 minutes, and the audience stood up for a mid-argument stretch, the chances were that the most significant feature of the Affordable Care Act would have perished in Kennedy’s concern that it just might alter the fundamental relationship between the American people and their government. But after two arguments by lawyers for the challengers — forceful and creative though they were — at least doubt had set in and expecting the demise of the mandate seemed decidedly premature. </span><span></span><span>The Justices will cast their first votes on the mandate’s constitutionality later this week, and there are perhaps three months of deliberations that would then follow. […] </span><span>Read: http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/argument-recap-…</span>
<span>David Frum calls OUT the GOP: "Supremes Won't Save GOP From Itself on Obamacare" All or nothing. That has been the dominant Republican approach to Obamacare from the start, and it is the dominant Republican approach today. In Congress, this approach led to the result: "Nothing." Now conservative challengers are hoping the Supreme Court will step in. And who knows? Maybe the justices are feeling bold. Maybe they are ready to expose themselves again to the fiercest partisan criticism since Bush v. Gore, or even fiercer. I'm not a Court-watcher, and have no expertise to offer, but just going with my gut: I doubt it. Even though the Solicitor General reportedly choked today, that doesn't change the fact that the conservatives on the Court have spent most of their intellectual lives railing against judicial activism. …………………………………………………… If you have said over and over again, in writing, that you object to judges writing their policy preference into the Constitution, you have to wince a little at the invitation to write your own. Especially when the principle on which you are invited to reverse yourself—the distinction between economic "activity" and "inactivity"—is likely to be the laugh of the law schools over the next 100 years. </span><span></span><span></span><span>My uninformed guess: the ACA prevails, and probably not by a narrow margin.</span><span></span><span>What then? What then is that healthcare comes roaring back as a campaign issue, to which Republicans have failed to provide themselves an answer. Because of the prolonged economic downturn, more Americans than ever have lost—or are at risk of losing—their health coverage. Many of them will be voting in November. What do Republicans have to say to them? </span><span></span><span></span><span>Make no mistake: If Republicans lose in the Supreme Court, they'll need an answer. […] </span><span></span><span>Read: http://okwassup.blogspot.com/2012/03/obamacare-go…</span>
So on this day of *FINAL* arguments, it seems that most media *band-wagon* talking-heads have settled on a narrative: "Oh woe is the president. Oh woe is Obamacare."Meanwhile I think 2 guys capable of thinking OUTSIDE the media echo chamber have PERHAPS more accurately summed up where things really stand: David Frum (see previous entry) and Lyle Denniston over at SCOTUSblog:Analysis: "Argument recap: A lift for the mandate?"The Supreme Court spent 91 minutes Wednesday operating on the assumption that it would strike down the key feature of the new health care law, but may have convinced itself in the end not to do that because of just how hard it would be to decide what to do after that. A common reaction, across the bench, was that the Justices themselves did not want the onerous task of going through the remainder of the entire 2,700 pages of the law and deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and most seemed to think that should be left to Congress. They could not come together, however, on just what task they would send across the street for the lawmakers to perform. The net effect may well have shored up support for the individual insurance mandate itself.The dilemma could be captured perfectly in two separate comments by Justice Antonin Scalia — first, that it “just couldn’t be right” that all of the myriad provisions of the law unrelated to the mandate had to fall with it, but, later, that if the Court were to strike out the mandate, “then the statute’s gone.” Much of the lively argument focused on just what role the Court would more properly perform in trying to sort out the consequences of nullifying the requirement that virtually every American have health insurance by the year 2014.The Wednesday morning argument offered the Court three mutually exclusive options: strike down all of the Affordable Care Act along with the mandate (the challengers’ position), strike down only two core changes in the way the health insurance system works (the government position), and strike down nothing but the mandate (the position of a Court-appointed lawyer). Not one seemed to be especially appealing to members of the Court, and each of the three lawyers who came to the lectern faced tough and often skeptical questioning, from across the bench.Read: http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/argument-recap-…