Supreme Court to Consider Obamacare Case Friday

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American Spectator:


When the U.S. Supreme Court is in session, each Wednesday and Friday afternoon is set aside for an esoteric conclave known as the Justices' Conference. During these private meetings, the justices discuss cases they have recently heard or might decide to hear. The first order of business usually involves the latter, requests from various litigants for the high court to review cases that have been adjudicated by lower courts. Typically, these cases have already been through the appellate process, but occasionally the justices receive a "petition for certiorari before judgment" asking them to consider the decision of some District Court before it has been reviewed by a Court of Appeals. Friday's conference schedule includes consideration of one such petition, filed pursuant to Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius.


The Virginia case was, of course, the first legal challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) received a major defeat. Last December, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson ruled that Congress had exceeded its constitutional limits by including a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance in the health care "reform" law. Shortly following this ruling, the Obama DOJ filed an appeal in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, but Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced that he would petition the Supreme Court for an expedited review of the case. Explaining his move to bypass the usual protracted appellate process, Cuccinelli averred that "a prompt resolution of this issue is in everyone's best interest."

Oddly, considering its oft-repeated assertion that Congress does indeed possess the authority to impose such a mandate, the Obama DOJ has taken the opposite view. It has, in fact, worked diligently to put off the inevitable day when it must make that case before the Supreme Court. In response to Cuccinelli's petition, the DOJ filed a brief in opposition claiming that Virginia had provided no good reason for "short-circuiting" the appellate process. The Court does, of course, have practical and philosophical reasons not to meddle with the normal appeals process, but its procedural rules allow it to do so if a case is of "imperative public importance." Ironically, the DOJ's brief actually concedes that the constitutionality of the individual mandate "is undoubtedly an issue of great public importance."