Anthony Kennedy

The John Roberts Legacy Hanging On Tenterhooks As Health Care Decision Nears!

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Chief Justice John Roberts is reported to be writing the majority opinion for Thursday’s Health Care decision on “ObamaCare”.

Coming on top of his siding with Anthony Kennedy and three liberals on the Court on the immigration case, many observers sense that he and Kennedy will again be in the majority with the four liberals on the Court, and decide in favor of “ObamaCare”.

If Roberts does so, it will transform him immediately into one of the giants of the 17 Chief Justices of the Supreme Court historically.

If he does not do so, he is doomed to a negative role in judicial history, and will be seen by many observers as a failure as a Chief Justice.

The choice is that stark, as this case is the most important since Bush V. Gore, and follows the disastrous Citizens United Case, tragically upheld again yesterday in a Montana case on straight party line and ideology.

Roberts’ reputation is already in trouble, but could be resurrected by an open minded attitude toward health care as covered under the interstate commerce clause.

Roberts, it is said, worries about his and the Court’s reputation, and even if he serves another 20 years, he will never outlive the disappointment and turmoil that will occur if the Court rejects “ObamaCare”.

Since he seems to be a strong believer in federal power, as shown yesterday in the immigration case and the juvenile murderer case, we expect him to come down on the right of the federal government to regulate health care, and require a mandate, a demand that all citizens have health care coverage, if they wish to gain health care when needed, rather than sponging off those of us who have paid for health care.

The actual mandate would be the equivalent of about $15 a week, equivalent of one person having one meal per week at a restaurant, or half a tank of gasoline. Is this too much to ask of all citizens? The answer is NO!

Chief Justice Roberts: We are watching you!

A Reminder: The Supreme Court Determines The Future!

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WIth the Supreme Court term about to end on Thursday, and all of the tumult about the upcoming decision on the Affordable Care Act, and the decisions today on immigration, corporate spending in campaigns, and juvenile sentencing for life terms for murder fresh on one’s mind, it is again important to remember what most Americans don’t even know or realize: The Supreme Court determines the future, more than any part of American government!

A lifetime job, with total freedom to say and do what one wants, is a great power, and we are now suffering from the reality that Ronald Reagan may be dead for eight years, but two of his appointments to the Court (Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy) are still dictating much of what happens in America; George H. W. Bush’s appointee, Clarence Thomas, is not going away anytime soon; and George W. Bush’s two appointments, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, will be around for at least two more decades on the Court, assuming good health!

And now with Scalia and Kennedy being 76, and Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsberg being 79 and Stephen Breyer being 73, it is certain that one to four appointments are likely to be made by the winner of the 2012 election.

Can we afford President Romney shaping a Court that will be to the “right of Attila the Hun?”

It would destroy the chance for fairness, equity, humanity on the Court, and would continue the corporate conquest of American government going on with the Citizens United case, and the new Montana case just decided, that reaffirmed that earlier, disgraceful, decision!

It cannot be emphasized enough that NOTHING matters more than the Supreme Court and the federal circuit judges in this upcoming Presidential election! Economic policy and foreign policy are much less significant than constitutional law!

Obama and his supporters NEED to bring up this issue regularly, and never stop referring to it, with the hope that it will penetrate the brains of the American people!

Justice Anthony Kennedy Still The Key Vote On Supreme Court: 2 Positives, 1 Negative!

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Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy is still the key vote on the Supreme Court, and today batted 2 for 3!

He was part of the majority on the Arizona immigration law, with three out of four of the provisions of that law overturned, but still allowing police officers to check the status of people they stop for any violations.

He was also on the majority side on a case that gave juvenile murderers the possibility of parole from a life sentence.

He was on the wrong side of a Montana case designed to reverse the Citizens United case, a tragic development!

But two out of three is quite good, and there is still hope that he may be in the majority, maybe along with Chief Justice John Roberts, on the Obama Health Care law, when the Supreme Court announces its decision on Thursday, June 28.

The fact that Chief Justice Roberts joined Kennedy in the majority in the immigration case, with Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself because she had been Solicitor General during the time of the passage of the Arizona law, was encouraging to make people believe he might join Kennedy in the majority on the health care legislation. We shall see in three days!

So far, quite good!

NAACP Endorsement Of Gay Rights And Gay Marriage As Another Civil Rights Struggle: Major Victory!

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The leading, and most reputable, Civil Rights organization in America, the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP), has just endorsed gay rights and gay marriage as equivalent of another civil right, as much as the African American struggle for equality in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is a major victory for gay rights and gay marriage, and will help bring over many African Americans, who because of religious beliefs, have opposed such developments in California, North Carolina, and elsewhere, helping to cause defeats of referendums on the issue of gay marriage.

There were already signs of a beginning of a new attitude among blacks on the topic, and this will only help the progression toward something that will become more and more the norm over time, and in 40 years, we will look back with amazement at the opposition, just as was so with interracial marriage in the 1960s.

The “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment was utilized by the NAACP to justify their stand for gay marriage as a civil right.

This is the way that could be utilized in the future by the Supreme Court, and if a case came up in the short term, such as the California case pursued by Ted Olson and David Boies, the Court COULD rule in favor by a vote of 5-4,. assuming that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who made the majority in 2003 for gay privacy rights in Lawrence V. Texas, were to vote the same way.

One could say that Anthony Kennedy’s vote in 2003 had a great effect in spurring the rapid development of the gay rights movement in the intervening nine years from then to now!

So a Supreme Court endorsement of gay marriage could be in the offing sooner, rather than later!

Is It The Kennedy Court, Rather Than The Roberts Court?

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The more one analyzes the US Supreme Court in recent years, it is more clear than ever that we should call it the Anthony Kennedy Court, rather than the John Roberts Court!

Kennedy, appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan in 1988 as a compromise choice who could pass Senate muster, after the well publicized rejection of Robert Bork in 1987, has now been on the Court for 24 years, and is seen more than ever as the “swing vote” on the Court, first sharing that with former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, until her retirement in 2005, but now all by himself as the most significant vote on the Court.

Kennedy, basically a conservative but with an open mind, has leaned to the Right two thirds of the time, and to the Left one third of the time on the average.

It is seen by just about all Court watchers that Kennedy’s vote on the Obama Health Care legislation is crucial, as to whether it survives or goes down.

Kennedy disappointed many on the left in being in the majority on the Bush V. Gore case of 2000, the Citizens United case of 2010, and the Strip Search case of this past Monday. But at the same time, he upheld the rights of gays to privacy in the Lawrence V. Texas case of 2003, enraging fellow Justice Antonin Scalia.

His questioning about the Obama Health Care law last week showed the quandary he is in, and he is getting pressure from many sources to uphold the law, but the belief is that he will not give in to pressure, and might even be tempted to go with the other conservative Justices in overturning the law.

The theory is that IF Kennedy goes with upholding the law, that Chief Justice John Roberts will join him, making it a 6-3 vote, but that if he decides to negate the law, then the vote will be a partisan 5-4 vote against the legislation.

So to call the present Court the Kennedy Court seems very appropriate!

The Destruction Of Civil Liberties: Anyone Arrested For Any Charge Can Be Strip Searched Multiple Times, By Declaration Of The Right Wing Majority Of Supreme Court!

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An extremely shocking, disastrous decision of the US Supreme Court today will bring the power of the legal system down heavy on ANYONE arrested and detained, no matter how minor the infraction, including traffic violations!

By a straight 5-4 conservative majority of the Supreme Court, a person arrested for failure to pay traffic fines, which he had actually paid, led to six days of detainment in a local jail, and constant, repetitive strip searches that left the person involved feeling a loss of his masculinity, self esteem and self image.

This is not for serious criminals who are accused of murder and rape and robbery alone; it is for ANY charge, no matter how minor, and not only for convicted criminals, but any suspect on any accusation that leads to arrest and detention.

The local police gain unusual powers and control, and what makes it any different than a dictatorship, one may ask?

It is one thing if someone is thought to have contraband on his person, but for everyone for any minor offense or accusation? This is absolutely CRAZY, but nothing can be done about it, and all of us will face the fear that if by chance we are ever detained for ANY reason, we will lose our sense of dignity and self worth!

And realize this includes not only men, but women and CHILDREN as well!

This is insanity, and shows the dangers when the “wrong” President is in office!

This is the result, long term, of the Bush V. Gore case, where the Supreme Court, on a purely partisan basis, gave George W. Bush the Presidency over Al Gore, which led to Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito in 2005 and 2006!

These two men are proving to be hard line conservatives, and now we must wonder if Roberts, who supposedly worries about the image of the Court, will do what is right on the Obama Health Care legislation in June, and prevent a purely partisan decision by 5-4.

But it also makes one wonder about Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, who sometimes goes against the conservative majority on the Court, and who could have prevented this nightmare decision today, but chose not to do so.

Will he stay with the conservative majority again on the Obama Health Care law? This is crucial, since if he joins the four liberals on the Court, it is seen as likely that Roberts would join that side, but if Kennedy stays with the conservatives, Roberts assuredly will stay with them as well.

These are the consequences of electing a President, and makes the re-election of Barack Obama even more urgent, as otherwise, the Court will become no better than a Fascist Court in spirit, if not in name!

This decision of the Court will damage the reputation of that body, and it is something all of us who care about civil liberties will mourn for a long time!

Just be very careful NEVER to face arrest, as if we can control that!

Conservatives Who Support The Obama Health Care Law: Charles Fried, Laurence Silberman, Jeffrey Sutton

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Three major conservative leaders have made clear by statements and actions that they believe the Obama Health Care law is constitutional under the commerce clause of the Constitution.

Charles Fried, who was Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, was highly critical of some of the questioning by conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court this past week. Fried said health care is interstate commerce, and that Congress has the right to regulate interstate commerce. The arguments utilized in questioning are “phony rhetoric” in Fried’s mind.

Judge Laurence Silberman of the DC Court Of Appeals upheld the Obama Health Care law as constitutional in one of the cases brought by states before circuit courts on the way to the Supreme Court, decided on November 8, 2011. He has been a federal judge for 27 years, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and is a good friend, of all people, of Justice Clarence Thomas, who is seen as a guaranteed vote against the Obama Health Care law.

And Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the 6th Circuit Court Of Appeals upheld the health care law on June 29, 2011, and is seen as a leader of the conservative Federalist Society! He was appointed by George W. Bush, and is considered a disciple of Justice Antonin Scalia! He is well known as a states rights advocate!

So go figure!

This tells us ANYTHING can happen on this Court decision, and not to come to a conclusion this early that the Obama Health Care law is going to be overturned!

Chief Justice John Roberts: What He Wants As His Long Term Legacy

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There is much speculation about the US Supreme Court and the most important case in a decade–the Affordable Care Act, known by its critics as “ObamaCare”.

Many think Anthony Kennedy is the key vote, but actually, the author would say that Chief Justice John Roberts is the REAL key vote, and there is much speculation that he will join the liberals and Kennedy, the usual swing vote, and might even convince Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito to join as well, on the power of his personality and the respect he engenders on the Court over the past seven years.

Chief Justice Roberts is going to have long career on the Court, and he wants his legacy to be positive, and IF the Court rules against “ObamaCare”, his reputation will be in tatters, and will be irretrievable.

Roberts is considered one of the brightest members of the Court, and although a conservative, he is not extreme as Clarence Thomas, for instance, is.

Roberts wishes to unite and move forward, and has been stung by the horrible reaction to the Citizens United case of 2010, and to the remnants of the Bush V. Gore case of 2000, the damage done to the reputation of the Court BEFORE he arrived as Chief Justice in 2005.

His questioning showed a mind conflicted, but to believe that he will negate the whole law is hard to imagine, as he set aside three days and six hours for this case, highly unusual, and that is, to many observers, a sign that he recognizes how crucial this issue is in itself, and the seriousness with which he takes it..

While no one can read the mind of anyone, expect Roberts to write the opinion and be in the majority, which is likely 6-3, but could be 7-2 or 8-1.

This case will shape the long term future of the Court, and if the law is overturned, the likely result will be, over time, a single payer system, which any conservative would not want.

And remember it was conservatives who led the charge in the time of Bill Clinton for what is now “RomneyCare” in Massachusetts, and “ObamaCare” in America!

Trying To Fathom The Supreme Court On Health Care: The Court Under The Microscope

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Yesterday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court led many observers to think that the Court is about to declare the Obama Health Care law unconstitutional this coming June.

Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen! This is hysteria and panic before the fact, with plenty of opportunity after the Court decision, if it is, indeed, negative!

Emphasis was put on Justice Antonin Scalia’s sarcastic comments about mandating broccoli, a totally ridiculous statement! But one must remember that Scalia is a showboat, a maniacal egotist who loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and get everyone’s attention, and one must remember that the Court was issuing an audio of the oral arguments immediately after the event, a very rare circumstance, and that had to be on Scalia’s mind!

Scalia was thought to be a possible vote, but if it is not, so what, as Scalia is, arguably, a hypocrite who is constantly contradictory, utilizing a broad interpretation of the Constitution, when he wishes to, and other times, pontificating on “originalism”, the idea that we must literally follow the Founding Fathers as they saw things in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention.

More importantly, the view of Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts will be the crucial votes, and although Kennedy and Roberts both expressed some reservations about the Obama Health Care bill and the mandate contained within it, there were also key comments by both that indicated a mind open to consideration of the constitutionality of the law.

Kennedy is usually the swing vote, and seemed conflicted, which can be seen as a good sign, and Roberts seemed very evenhanded, and is known to want to be in the majority, and probably write this most important decision of the past decade, and aware that the Supreme Court does not look very good in the eyes of many people based on recent cases, particularly the Citizens United Case of 2010, on top of the Bush V. Gore case of 2000.

The argument is that if Kennedy goes to the majority, then Roberts will join, and the vote would be 6-3.

And one must point out that the four defenders of the legislation were excellent in their arguments supporting the legislation, with Justice Stephen Breyer, a true intellectual, particularly outstanding in his arguments, but joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

So, with one more day of oral arguments, it is not time to give up on support of the legislation, and also realize that one cannot always judge how members of the Court will vote, based on oral argument alone, as often, what is being done is to test both sides in the case, and sometimes, purposely mislead on intentions, in the process of asking the lawyers in the case to defend their side.

This decision is far from certain, but progressives should feel optimistic about it at this point, and simply wait patiently to see the result, knowing that the cause is just and compassionate, and that those of us who support it are on the right side of history with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society!

Two Year Anniversary Of Health Care Law, And Oral Arguments On Case Next Week In Supreme Court

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The Affordable Care Act, the Obama Health Care legislation, hits its two year anniversary this week, and next week, the US Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the legislation, seen as the landmark case of the past decade by many, and as the crucial issue that will have a dramatic effect either way on the upcoming Presidential Election of 2012.

The Obama Health Care law has allowed young people to remain on their parents’ health insurance to age 26; has prevented pre-existing conditions from being used to deny health care; and has cut down the “donut hole” for senior citizens in relation to their prescription costs.

Many other reforms must wait until 2014, assuming that the Supreme Court does not declare the whole act unconstitutional.

There is furious action to try to destroy the signature legislation that really defines the Obama Presidency, a law that took a full year to pass, and that was passed on party lines, which is actually not at all unusual in history.

Some federal judges have upheld the legislation, while others have challenged it, and it will be argued by both sides over three days for the unusually long total period of six hours, showing just how significant this case is!

As it seems now, the four “liberal” Justices–Bill Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, and Barack Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—will support the legislation.

For it to survive in one piece, at least one of the five “conservative” Justices would have to join the four liberal appointees of Clinton and Obama.

Anthony Kennedy, usually the swing vote, and usually joining the liberals on about one third of the cases before the Court, is thought to be a good bet, but not a guarantee.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who is very aware of the significance of this case for the Court and for his reputation, is thought to join in the majority, but again no certainty.

Ironically, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who one would think would be opposed, has indicated in other cases as hints that he just might support the legislation.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito is thought less likely to support the legislation, and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is thought to be the one certain, guaranteed vote against the health care legislation.

The argument for the legislation is the application of the commerce clause of the Constitution, which has been utilized over and over again by the US Supreme Court in the past, adding to the powers of the federal government. This was the same controversy with the Social Security Act, with a conservative oriented Supreme Court in the 1930s, and that legislation was upheld.

The argument against is based on opposition to the so called “mandate” that all citizens MUST obtain health insurance coverage by 2014, or face a fine.

What the critics fail to address is that when someone does not have health insurance and ends up needing medical care, he or she ends up in the emergency room, and all of us have to pay for the health care provided. Is it proper that some have no health care coverage and gain medical aid, and the rest of us have to pay for our health care, and also for those who are irresponsible enough to avoid paying for care that he or she knows he or she can gain for free?

This is the crux of the matter, and it is hoped and believed that a majority of the Supreme Court will end up backing the Health Care law, with a prediction by many of at least 5-4, but even possibly 6-3, or 7-2, or even 8-1.

A victory by more than 5-4 would be a real endorsement of the health care legislation, while a 5-4 defeat would be a major blow to 50 million citizens who benefit from the legislation.

In either case, this decision, when it is announced in June, will have a transformative effect on our nation, and on the Presidential Election of 2012. We will all wait with “baited breath” for the result!