Place Your Bets
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I am willing to bet a crisp new $1.00 bill that Obamacare will be upheld in its entirety by the US Supreme Court.
The four liberal justices will say it’s fine – indeed, doesn’t go far enough.
The four conservative justices will say it’s abhorrent to the concept of enumerated powers and must be stuck down.
Anthony Kennedy will decide that ordinarily, the federal government can’t reach so broadly under its power to regulate interstate commerce. But he’ll find that the right to decide when and where to have a family is a Constitutional right and some people can’t afford birth control pills or abortions, so the entire nation can be forced to buy health care insurance in order to fund poor people’s birth control choices. In this one unique situation, the constitutional right to abortion is so important that any means the government uses to fund it, is justified.
5-4 to uphold.
Place your bets now.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
No action on that bet.
It’s waaaaaay too plausible.
March 29th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
To be completely fatalist, I’d bet that the deciding vote won’t be Kennedy but rather Roberts. Which would make my blood pressure spray out my ears.
Hope I’m wrong and Joe is too.
March 29th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
1. To be completely fatalist, I’d bet that the deciding vote won’t be Kennedy but rather Roberts.
I don’t think it’s fatalism, it’s strategy. As Chief Justice, Roberts gets to pick who writes the opinion of the Court so long as he’s one of the justices in the majority. If five other justices vote to uphold the law, Roberts may choose to join them as it would enable him to write the opinion and tailor the holding as narrowly as possible. It doesn’t change the outcome of the case (as a law that’s upheld 5-4 is just as much the law of the land as one that’s been upheld 6-3) but a more narrow holding may make it less difficult to challenge future laws than a broader one..
Since Doakes said that the bet was “5-4 to uphold,” I’ll take that bet. If it’s upheld it will probably be at least 6 to 3.
April 1st, 2012 at 9:13 am
If it’s upheld 5-4, I win.
If it’s upheld by more than 5-4, you win.
If it’s stuck down, we both forfeit our bets to Mitch.
You’re on, Thorley. Now, who’ll hold the stakes?
April 2nd, 2012 at 4:59 am
Something has to be done about healthcare. If this law is struck down, I wonder what the next effort will look like.