Reach of Sibelius v. Hobby Lobby?

[ISiddiqui]

@iiandyiiii

They’re already doing this, on both sides.

But should they? The issue with saying justices have a duty to the right thing is that it promotes this legislative understanding of judgeship, on either side.

[Richard_Parker]

@Revenant_Threshold

I sense that I’m opening a can of worms here, so feel free to just point me somewhere that could answer my question; why?

If you are asking why we protect religious morality but not secular morality, then the answer is a long one involving lots of history. The only real secular justification for it is that it reduces conflict among the religious to accommodate their beliefs and encourages lots of immigrants from different places to come work hard in our new country.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Richard_Parker

If you are asking why we protect religious morality but not secular morality, then the answer is a long one involving lots of history. The only real secular justification for it is that it reduces conflict among the religious to accommodate their beliefs and encourages lots of immigrants from different places to come work hard in our new country.

Perhaps I’d do better to start a new thread on this.

Edit: Removed reply to Bricker.

[iiandyiiii]

@ISiddiqui

But should they? The issue with saying justices have a duty to the right thing is that it promotes this legislative understanding of judgeship, on either side.

I don’t think it’s every been avoided, and I’m not sure it’s possible.

[ISiddiqui]

@iiandyiiii

I don’t think it’s every been avoided, and I’m not sure it’s possible.

If the expectation for judges is to avoid make legislative decisions (on either side), I’d imagine you’d see less blatantly partisan decision making. Would it happen? Sure. Would it happen less if it was discouraged? I believe so.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Eonwe

How does this ruling affect a business to exclude coverage for any sort of medical care that goes against its “sincerely held religious beliefs”? Is any aspect of health care fair game?

The syllabus (which is not a binding statement of law) says:

This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs.

However, the actual opinion does not offer any justification for treating transfusions differently. It mentions transfusions just once, and says they are irrelevant because there is no evidence that anyone has previously refused to cover them.

HHS and the principal dissent argue that a ruling in favor of the objecting parties in these cases will lead to a flood of religious objections regarding a wide variety of medical procedures and drugs, such as vaccinations and blood transfusions, but HHS has made no effort to substantiate this prediction. HHS points to no evidence that insurance plans in existence prior to the enactment of ACA excluded coverage for such items. Nor has HHS provided evidence that any significant number of employers sought exemption, on religious grounds, from any of ACA’s coverage requirements other than the contraceptive mandate.

I am not convinced that anyone will actually refuse to cover such things, but if Alito had a convincing counterargument he presumably would have said so. Instead he’s crossing his fingers and hoping it doesn’t come up.

@jtgain

Are you suggesting, for example, that because I believe (strongly secularly believe) that Obamacare is a bad law, I should be able to disregard it? Surely not.

Well, why not? You get to disregard it if you sincerely religiously believe it’s a bad law.

[adaher]

Not only that, but are blood transfusions actually mandatory under ACA? No one has yet shown me evidence that they are explicitly required, unlike contraception.

Also, blood transfusions are a life and death issue and therefore a compelling government interest. Contraception is merely a policy preference, and a politically motivated one at that.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Yes, medically necessary transfusions must be covered (though not specifically under the ACA, and not at 100%.)

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Richard_Parker

The problem with the umpire analogy is not chiefly that it’s not desirable from a democratic standpoint, it’s that it is impossible–claiming to just be a neutral strike-caller is a smokescreen for refusing to discuss the actual reasoning that underlies a judge’s opinion, allowing the judge to present disingenuous arguments that an ambiguous piece of text has an utterly clear meaning.

Smokescreen indeed. I’ll add this bit by Richard Posner since he says it better than I would:

It is true, as Scalia and Garner say, that statutory text is not inherently liberal or inherently conservative; it can be either, depending on who wrote it. Their premise is correct, but their conclusion does not follow: text as such may be politically neutral, but textualism is conservative.

A legislature is thwarted when a judge refuses to apply its handiwork to an unforeseen situation that is encompassed by the statute’s aim but is not a good fit with its text. Ignoring the limitations of foresight, and also the fact that a statute is a collective product that often leaves many questions of interpretation to be answered by the courts because the legislators cannot agree on the answers, the textual originalist demands that the legislature think through myriad hypothetical scenarios and provide for all of them explicitly rather than rely on courts to be sensible. In this way, textualism hobbles legislation—and thereby tilts toward “small government” and away from “big government,” which in modern America is a conservative preference.

SOURCE: Richard A. Posner on the Incoherence of Antonin Scalia | The New Republic

[BrainGlutton]

@Bricker

Scalia knows how to be the kind of judge I think we should have, more so than Roberts or Ginsburg.

There is no “kind of judge” mandated by law, of course. But I want judges that understand that they are not legislators. I want judges that don’t want to make new social policy.

What’s your view of the Warren Court, then?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Bricker

The text in this case is pretty damn definitive. The RFRA applies to persons. The Dictionary Act says “person” includes corporation.

Why is a Supreme Court justice beholden to this?

If Congress passes a law defining “arms” to mean “chicken wings” is the court obligated to follow that and thus let gun restrictions stand?

I am pretty sure nowhere in the constitution is a corporation labeled as equivalent to a person and going by a textualist reading or a dictionary reading I would suggest no one at the time of its ratification would agree that a corporation is a person. Just because congress says corporation = person does not obligate the court to read and apply the constitution that way.

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Richard_Parker]

The Constitution isn’t being applied here. It is one statute defining another statute, Whack-a-Mole.

[Bricker]

@iiandyiiii

And I’m also somewhat gratified by Republican presidents’ very shaky record of appointing justices that actually hold up to conservatives’ hopes. Democratic presidents have been way better at this.

True.

Damnit, you’re spoiling my Happy Decision Monday.

[Bricker]

@Whack-a-Mole

Why is a Supreme Court justice beholden to this?

If Congress passes a law defining “arms” to mean “chicken wings” is the court obligated to follow that and thus let gun restrictions stand?

I am pretty sure nowhere in the constitution is a corporation labeled as equivalent to a person and going by a textualist reading or a dictionary reading I would suggest no one at the time of its ratification would agree that a corporation is a person. Just because congress says corporation = person does not obligate the court to read and apply the constitution that way.

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

The constitution isn’t involved.

And yes, I’d say that if Congress passes a law that says, “corporation = person,” then the courts are obliged to agree that, for the purposes of the law, corporation=person.

[Bricker]

@Richard_Parker

If you require examples of the Court declining to apply the Dictionary Act despite the lack of an express definition, I’m happy to provide. Pretty sure there was at least one from this term alone, and certain there are some from prior terms.

I hate to be a bother, but I always work better with concrete examples.

So, yes, please. Just one or two.

[Bricker]

@BrainGlutton

What’s your view of the Warren Court, then?

I think I’m opposed to burglary even if the burglar’s primary actions are to redecorate my living room in tasteful earth tones, fix the squeaky hinge on the basement door, and re-season my cast iron skillet.

In other words, I can simultaneously acknowledge the good results that might come from an undesirable method.

AKA: the Warren Court.

[Richard_Parker]

@Bricker

I hate to be a bother, but I always work better with concrete examples.

So, yes, please. Just one or two.

Ok. The recent case: CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 134 S. Ct. 2175, 2187 (2014) (holding that “statute of limitations” is singular based on implied context and does not refer to multiple periods of limitations, despite Dictionary Act provision that singular terms should be read as including the plural).

For a longer discussion of what “context” means in a particularly relevant case, see Rowland v. California Men’s Colony, Unit II Men’s Advisory Council, 506 U.S. 194, 199 (1993) (holding that “person” refers only to individuals, despite Dictionary Act definition):

“Context” here means the text of the Act of Congress surrounding the word at issue, or the texts of other related congressional Acts, and this is simply an instance of the word’s ordinary meaning: “[t]he part or parts of a discourse preceding or following a ‘text’ or passage or a word, or so intimately associated with it as to throw light upon its meaning.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 576 (2d ed. 1942). . . . If “context” thus has a narrow compass, the “indication” contemplated by 1 U.S.C. § 1 has a broader one. The Dictionary Act’s very reference to contextual “indication” bespeaks something more than an express contrary definition, and courts would hardly need direction where Congress had thought to include an express, specialized definition for the purpose of a particular Act; ordinary rules of statutory construction would prefer the specific definition over the Dictionary Act’s general one. Where a court needs help is in the awkward case where Congress provides no particular definition, but the definition in 1 U.S.C. § 1 seems not to fit.

There it is that the qualification “unless the context indicates otherwise” has a real job to do, in excusing the court from forcing a square peg into a round hole. The point at which the indication of particular meaning becomes insistent enough to excuse the poor fit is of course a matter of judgment, but one can say that “indicates” certainly imposes less of a burden than, say, “requires” or “necessitates.” One can also say that this exception from the general rule would be superfluous if the context “indicate[d] otherwise” only when use of the general definition would be incongruous enough to invoke the common mandate of statutory construction to avoid absurd results. In fine, a contrary “indication” may raise a specter short of inanity, and with something less than syllogistic force.

(emphasis mine)

[rsa]

In the three or four pages of posts since the decision came down today, I still don’t see an answer as to whether vaccinations could be eliminated from coverage under this ruling. Unlike blood transfusions, vaccinations are not an immediate life or death imperative. There are certainly people who oppose vaccination on religious grounds.

[2ManyTacos]

IANAL, but damn…I’m still wrapping my head around the idea that corporations can exert religious liberties. Seriously, from my outsider’s perspective, this entire decision comes off as pure, unadulterated nonsense. I mean, I get that that corporations desperately want to be on equal footing as human beings in this country, but as John Oliver so brilliantly pointed out last night, part of being a person is that you sometimes have to pay for shit that you don’t like. If Hobby Lobby hated this mandate so much, they could have just sucked it up & either provided it anyway or otherwise pay the non-compliance fee. Like I said, this is pure, unadulterated nonsense IMO, but I digress. A few quick thoughts:

1. If anything, this decision underscores the fact that health insurance has NO GAWDDAMN BUSINESS being tied to employment at all, given that employers can pick & choose the types of services that it wants to facilitate. As much as I’m a fan of the ACA writ large, one of its biggest flaws is its reliance on employment-sponsored insurance. This ruling further reinforces the stupidity of the US health care system.

2. On a personal note, this decision adds even more fuel to my own desire to just completely expat myself altogether, as if I needed any more reasons to disengage myself from this nonsense.

[Richard_Parker]

@rsa

In the three or four pages of posts since the decision came down today, I still don’t see an answer as to whether vaccinations could be eliminated from coverage under this ruling. Unlike blood transfusions, vaccinations are not an immediate life or death imperative. There are certainly people who oppose vaccination on religious grounds.

It is unclear for two reasons:

(1) In this case, the Court thought there was a clear “less restrictive means” of ensuring access to birth control, namely forcing the insurance companies to provide it when the corporations opts-out. AFAIK, that mechanism does not exist for vaccines right now. My guess, however, is they basically fall into the same category of something the insurance company wants to do anyway, and so you might get the same result even though it isn’t part of existing policy.

(2) The Court purports to limit the ruling to contraception. However, as I’ve argued above, I think this limitation is entirely hollow. There is no reason RFRA would not apply to vaccines. In my view, the only real issue would be (1), above.