What enforcement? All enforcement other than docking refunds is illegal. Plus they can just claim “other hardship” without providing documentation. No one actually need pay the mandate unless they are uninformed.
For those keeping tabs on this, it looks like the folks who won the Halbig case have appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Basically, they know that their bullshit argument is doomed in front of the full DC circuit, making it all the less likely that SCOTUS touches it.
This is the second group to request an expedited SCOTUS review, after the losers from the Fourth Circuit asked the Court to review the case a few weeks ago.
I still contend that the Court isn’t going to touch the ACA again with a ten foot pole, but it does speak to the desperation of ACA opponents.
Fucking lunatics.
Tell me again how the winner of a lawsuit appeals the judgement!?! IANAL but even I know you don’t appeal a judgement that went in your favor.
This is not an appeal by the winners in the *Halbig *case. This is a filing in opposition to the administration appeal for a rehearing in front of the full en banc panel of the DC circuit. See the filing here. (pdf link)
The argument by the *Halbig *attorneys is essentially that this is going to have to be settled by SCOTUS eventually and an en banc hearing is a waste of time.
At least, the *Halbig *side argues, the administrations petition should be held in abeyance until we see if SCOTUS is going to take the *King *case. Not really such an unreasonable point, IMHO. Filing of the government’s response to the petition for cert in *King *is due by September 3, 2014 with a decision on whether to take the case soon to follow.)
If indeed the *King *case is accepted at the SCOTUS, then it might not be so unreasonable to consolidate the *Halbig *matter as the arguments are essentially the same and any ruling by the DC Circuit would be irrelevant. As it stands there is a circuit split and expecting the SCOTUS to resolve that is hardly surprising.
But the high court could refer *Halbig *and/or *King *back for a full en banc review anyway.
But the thing is, it’s not a circuit split, or at least not in the way I understand it.
Look, IANAL, but what you have with the Halbig argument are several court cases decided in favor of the government’s position and one - literally, one decision (Halbig itself) - that was determined in the opponents’ favor. It becomes a circuit split if it reaches the top of multiple circuits & conflicting determinations are subsequently issued. To my recollection, it was only after those conditions arose back in 2012 that the ACA was brought into SCOTUS Round One.
If a Circuit Split does develop, I’ll be among the first to throw up my hands and declare that all bets are off, but considering that the majority of these cases (save one!) have already been basically laughed out of the courtroom, I’m just not really counting on that to happen.
A ruling by an appeals court panel is a ruling from the top of the circuit. The DC Circuit panel ruled against the administration. The 4th Circuit panel ruled in favor of the administration. That’s a split.
And its not just any split. The DC Circuit has a special sort of jurisdiction over interpretation of certain federal rules such as the IRS rule at question. Rulings from the DC Circuit on such rules can have nationwide impact. The 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction is geographical.
One of the plaintiff’s in the Halbig case is from West Virgina, which happens to be in the 4th Circuit’s geographical jurisdiction. So that plaintiff has the DC Circuit’s panel ruling in his favor but the 4th Circuit’s panel ruling against essentially the same arguments (albeit in the King case). That plaintiff has just cause to seek resolution of the matter as he has two federal appeals courts, each asserting jurisdiction, and ruling in contrary ways. SCOTUS is the place to resolve such a conflict.
En banc rehearings are very rare. *pdf link) constituting 45 out of 30,914 (0.146%) federal cases heard in 2010, for example. The number is consistently less than 1% of circuit case load.
And if you think the ruling in King was the judges of the 4th Circuit laughing the argument out of the courtroom then you sadly did not understand their ruling at all. The 4th Circuit panel and the DC Circuit panel agreed on a LOT of points that mostly went against the administration. Really.
That makes no sense, unless they’re sure an en banc ruling will go in their favor, and that is, um, not guaranteed, shall we say? Only the panel decision creates a split that would have to go to the SC, and an en banc hearing would clear that up.
Of course, *this *SC could take it if they wanted to, and their partisan activist record suggests they would. But they don’t have to.
Of course, the DC court of appeals doesn’t have to take it en banc, and in fact almost never does rehear cases (1 out of 500 or so?), but their partisan makeup suggests they would?
Call it partisan if you like, if you’ll also acknowledge the partisan nature, and ruling, of the three-judge panel, okay?
At this point no one has filed a writ of certiorari requesting the Supreme Court take up Halbig. The high court could act sua sponte so they could, in theory, take the case at this point. Highly doubtful though. IANAL, but it seems more likely they would act on the writ filed in the *King *case which addresses essentially the same arguments.
But as to whether the DC Circuit would accept the administration’s petition for rehearing en banc… odds say they won’t. I think they are highly likely to at least wait to see if SCOTUS grants cert to King. If so, the DC Circuit would almost certainly reject the administration’s petition for en banc rehearing as essentially moot. The administration could follow that up with their own writ to the SCOTUS and at that point the high court might as well accept *Halbig *and consolidate it with King.
If SCOTUS rejects the writ of cert in King, then perhaps the DC Circuit would agree to the en banc rehearing. But again, the Federal Appeals Courts reject the overwhelming majority of such petitions - so many so that the federal rules don’t even require the court to reply to such petitions.
My guess is that SCOTUS grants cert in *King *and the whole DC Circuit petition for rehearing is rejected.
Again, the Republican position (let’s not kid ourselves who’s doing this) is that the Supremes are inevitably *going *to hear the case. You now agree that they may or may not. Great.
But why would they, unless as a ploy by the 4 partisan activist regressives (not including Roberts) to try to discredit the entire law and the hated Obama somehow? Granted, that’s enough, but it certainly wouldn’t be on the merits of the suit. My guess would be the same as yours, that they’re pissy enough to do it.
I just don’t think that most of the Supremes - particularly Roberts, but Kennedy & the liberals as well - want to even touch the ACA issue ever again. I mean, just the pure optics of hearing an ACA court case again look remarkably shady, partisan, & spiteful. Seriously, they’ve already ruled on the ACA twice as it is, and in an era in which this same Court just gutted the greatest civil rights achievement of the past century while also granting religious rights to fucking corporations, I just can’t imagine that Roberts et al. are inkling to single-handedly strip medical care away from tens of millions of people. All over a lesson in grammar, really. That would fundamentally destroy the reputation of the already-tarnished USSC.
Also, I think Roberts pretty much unequivocally sent the message the first time around that if the American people are unhappy about the ACA, then it is incumbent upon them to elect politicians who will change it. Hopelessly (and in this case, cynically) vying for the Courts to do that through frivolous lawsuits is the wrong way to go about it.
You’re right, but it only takes 4 to grant cert, and 4 there are.
Yup, I think that Roberts is pretty firmly in the “don’t do this” camp on Halbig, largely because of how the Court’s perception would be jeopardized in such a scenario. Kennedy is probably in a similar situation due to those perceptual issues as well, & the liberals don’t want to touch the ACA again because of the pure partisan makeup & nature of this Court.
As to the other three conservative Justices, who the Hell knows? And again, I could obviously be wrong, but I just don’t think this argument is ever going to the Court.
If the regressives are concerned about the court’s image to historians more than advancing their own ideology, it’s something they’ve developed only since the first ACA ruling. It hasn’t been in evidence anywhere else.
So, the best bet is for the 4 who voted against the 21st century the last time to vote to do so again.
So the law is whatever the Democrats want it to be, not what’s actually written? Is that what it means to be in the 21st century? I guess they get points for consistency. They believe the Constitution should be a “living document” whose interpretation changes with the times. Apparently a law passed only four years ago also needs to be reinterpreted.
Wrong on pretty much all counts, Hannity.
Please. Even the court that upheld the subsidies admitted the language does not specifically authorize subsidies:
And keep in mind that what the 4th circuit said, if it ends up being the controlling decision, means that the law does not actually require subsidies. A future Republican administration can interpret the ambiguous language to reasonably mean no subsidies to federally run exchanges.
I’ll call this one a “partial adaher”. You make silly and juvenile claims, like “the law is whatever the Democrats want it to be”, I call you on it, and you just pretend like you said something else. 6/10. I’ve seen better from you.
The law is ambiguous, so Democrats are arguing, “But it has to mean what we want it to mean!” And frankly, I’d say the law is less ambiguous than Democrats would prefer. The law specifically refers to the section on state exchanges, while the section on federal exchanges is in another place.
Sure, the Democrats will probably win this one, but mainly through whining. Roberts doesn’t want to put the Court’s ass on the line by striking down such an important law based on a technicality, and the reason the Court’s ass would be on the line is because Democrats are whiners who don’t read their own bills, or the Constitution for that matter.
Nope, Democrats are not arguing this.
Sorry, Hannity. Wrong again.