United Liberty

The Supreme Court finished out the third and final day of oral arguments yesterday on ObamaCare with severability being the first issue the of the day. The question before the the Justices is if the individual mandate is indeed unconstitutional, does that mean the rest of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) have to be thrown out? The second issue before the court yesterday was whether or not Medicaid expansion would be coercive to the states and therefore unconstitutional.

In case you missed it, you can listen to the oral arguments and read the transcript on the severability issue here. The Medicaid arguments and transcript by be downloaded here.

Philip Klein, who has been covering oral arguments before Supreme Court on the PPACA for the last three days, provides a recap of the severability arguments:

ustices on the U.S. Supreme Court this morning considered what to do with the rest of President Obama’s national health care law if its individual health insurance mandate is struck down. Though it was difficult to get a clear read on their thinking as they asked tough questions of all sides, the Court seemed open to the possibility of overturning the entire law.

Paul Clement, arguing for the 26 states challenging the law along with the National Federation of Independent Business, started off the arguments by suggesting the Court look at whether Congress would have passed the law without the individual mandate.

The more liberal justices argued that there were plenty of elements of the law that had nothing to do with the mandate.

Yesterday was an interesting day at the Supreme Court. Justices heard the case on the individual mandate from both sides, with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli arguing the case for central part of ObamaCare and Paul Clement and Michael Carvin presenting the case against it. If you support the individual mandate, then it wasn’t a good day. If you oppose ObamaCare, there was reason for optimism that it will be struck down.

In case you missed it, you can listen to the oral arguments below and read the transcript from the Supreme Court’s website:

If you were hoping that the Supreme Court would punt on a ruling on the controversial health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), you’re no doubt disappointed in yesterday’s oral arguments. It appears, based on comments from various Justices, that there is no appetite for punting on the issue.

In case you missed it, you can listen to the oral arguments below and read the transcript from the Supreme Court’s website:

Over at the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein reports that two lawsuits challenging ObamaCare were heard before three judges appointed by Democratic presidents, including Barack Obama:

In an recent editorial at the Wall Street Journal, Randy Barnett and Elizabeth Price Foley explained Monday’s ruling by Judge Roger Vinson:

Judge Vinson flatly rejected the administration’s attempt to escape the restrictions of the Commerce Clause by appealing to the Necessary and Proper Clause. His decision acknowledges that, while reforming an insurance market is a regulation of commerce, Congress cannot artificially create its own “free rider” crisis in the insurance market and then use that crisis to justify an otherwise unconstitutional mandate as “necessary and proper” to save the market from collapse.

This novel use of the Necessary and Proper Clause, if allowed to stand, would fundamentally transform our constitutional scheme from limited to unlimited federal power, narrowing the scope of individual liberty. In Judge Vinson’s words, “the more harm the statute does, the more power Congress could assume for itself under the Necessary and Proper Clause. This result would, of course, expand the Necessary and Proper Clause far beyond its original meaning, and allow Congress to exceed the powers specifically enumerated in Article I.”

One crucial difference between the Florida and Virginia decisions relates to the breadth of the remedy. While both courts agreed that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, the Virginia decision merely declared the mandate alone to be unconstitutional—the rest of ObamaCare was unaffected. But Judge Vinson concluded that the individual mandate could not be “severed” from the rest of the law, and so the entire law must be struck down.

Just a few days after a federal judge in Virginia found the individual mandate to be unconstitutional, Judge Roger Vinson heard similar arguments in a challenge by 20 states against the health care reform law:

Attorneys for 20 states fighting the new federal health care law told a judge Thursday it will expand the government’s powers in dangerous and unintended ways.

The states want U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson to issue a summary judgment throwing out the health care law without a full trial. They argue it violates people’s rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

“The act would leave more constitutional damage in its wake than any other statute in our history,” David Rivkin, an attorney for the states, told Vinson.

President Barack Obama’s administration counters that Americans should not have a choice of opting out of the overhaul because everyone requires medical care.

Initial reports are that Vinson views the law in much the same light that he did back in October, that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Vinson wonder how far the Commerce Clause could stretch if the federal government could mandate every citizen buy health insurance:

In a federal courtroom Thursday, Judge Roger Vinson questioned how far Congress’s authority would go if it can legally require nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance.

In  a case dealing with sex offenders, the Supreme Court ruled today that Congress could pass a law authorizing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to keep someone in custody for an indefinite period even if they had served the full term of their sentence:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered ‘’sexually dangerous” after their prison terms are complete.

The high court in a 7-2 judgment reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered ‘’sexually dangerous.”

”The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing the majority opinion.

President George W. Bush in 2006 signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which authorized the civil commitment of sexually dangerous federal inmates.

The act, named after the son of ”America’s Most Wanted” television host John Walsh, was challenged by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but prison officials said there would be a risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if they were released.

It was a 7-2 ruling, and the two dissenters were Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who stated in a dissent authored by Thomas: