In Fact, Striking Down Health Care Law Would Be "Unprecedented" And "Extraordinary"
Cohn: "Rarely In American History Has The Court Struck Down Laws In Decisions That Would Have Such Quick, Widespread Impact."
Drum: "Very, Very Rarely Has" Supreme Court "Overturned A Major Piece Of Federal Legislation." In an April 1 Mother Jones article, Kevin Drum wrote:
There are two ways to look at this. The first is through the lens of what it would actually mean to overturn Obamacare. On this score, Jonathan [Cohn] is right: it would be unprecedented. The Supreme Court has handed down plenty of big decisions before, but very, very rarely has it overturned a major piece of federal legislation.
effrey Toobin: It Is "A Grave And Unusual Step For Unelected, Unaccountable, Life-Tenured Judges To Overrule" Government. In an article for the April 9 issue of the New Yorker, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote:
The involvement of the federal government in the health-care market is not unprecedented; it dates back nearly fifty years, to the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. The forty million uninsured Americans whose chances for coverage are riding on the outcome of the case are already entered "into commerce," because others are likely to pay their health-care costs.Kennedy's last point, about the "heavy burden" on the government to defend the law, was correct--in 1935. Justice Kennedy had it backward. The "heavy burden" is not on the defenders of the law but on its challengers. Acts of Congress, like the health-care law, are presumed to be constitutional, and it is -- or should be -- a grave and unusual step for unelected, unaccountable, life-tenured judges to overrule the work of the democratically elected branches of gover nment. [The New Yorker, 4/9/12]
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