Posted by
The Hermit Crab on Sunday, July 01, 2012 10:47:50 AM
I read a report the day after the
Supreme Court handed down its execrable decision on the Destroying
Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act that Governor Bobby Jindal
declared that Louisiana still will not bow down to this infernal law.
I hope he sticks to his determination, and I hope the other
governors follow his lead. This decision carries no moral weight,
and does not need to be followed. I have been waiting for three days
for some big-time conservative commentor to point out why this is so,
but no-one has, so I will.
This decision is of no legal or moral
force because Chief Justice John Roberts (the new poster child for
Beltway Fever) was not the deciding vote.
B.O.'s Solicitor General Elena Kagan
was.
In one of the most flagrant cases of
stacking the judicial deck in American history, Barack Obama placed
his own Solicitor General on the Supreme Court. It was a more modest
strategic move than FDR's infamous court-packing scheme in the 1930s
or Jimmy Carter's federal court expanding of the late 1970s (less
famous than FDR's scheme, this nearly doubled the number of federal
court judges – all appointed by Democrat Carter, of course).
However, this scheme of Obama's took court-packing in a new,
dangerous direction, for it gave him another solicitor in the
chamber. Not only would he have his official Solicitor General
making the case for this freedom-crushing edict, but he would also
have his “former” Solicitor filling in the gaps and correcting
the mistakes in the official argument. Anyone who heard the oral
argument of the case knows that Kagan was still representing the
administration, and not impartial justice. Several times Donald
Verrilli seemed to be losing ground defending the indefensible, and
“former” Solicitor General Kagan would get him “back onto the
rails”. Many commentors claimed that it has not been uncommon for
Justices to suggest lines of argument to attorneys arguing before the
court. Perhaps, but it is not common for the person who had been
tasked with building the argument to be presented to the court in the
future to then be placed on the court to here and rule on the
argument that they themselves actually built!
I am frankly astounded that the same
pundits who argued that Kagan must recuse herself from any role in
any case stemming from the Obama-doesn't-care law because she had
held the Solicitor General post in the administration during that
crucial period when the legal strategy for defense was being formed
all seem to have suddenly forgotten her name now that the decision is
here. They mainly have targeted Chief Justice John Roberts for his
seeming cringing turnaround, and indeed there is much to be
criticized in his decision. (His decision, that is, to please the
Beltway mob instead of defend the Constitution, which is his sworn
duty.) Roberts' decision is at least apparently honestly wrought,
but Kagan's very involvement was corrupting from the start.
I urge the governors of the states that
joined together to oppose this monstrous law in open court to follow
Governor Jindal's lead and declare that since the court which decided
this case was not legally constituted to hear this particular case,
due to the taint of partiality on Justice Kagan, their states are not
obligated to respect this decision, and that they will not.
The future of America may depend on it.