Monday round-up
on Mar 16, 2015 at 10:39 am
King v. Burwell, the challenge to the availability of tax subsidies for individuals who purchase their health insurance on an exchange operated by the federal government, and the constitutional avoidance doctrine, continues to garner commentary. At Dorf on Law, Eric Segall suggests a hypothetical that, in his view, proves that the government should prevail, while at JURIST Timothy Jost discusses the possible effect of the decision on Medicaid and CHIP, a program that provides health insurance to uninsured children. And the Casper (Wyo.) Star Tribune reports on the ruling’s possible effects in Wyoming, where residents purchase their health insurance on a federal exchange.
Briefly:
- At Lawfare, Jack Goldsmith considers the Court’s upcoming decision in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the Jerusalem passport case, and what it might mean for the “political and legal debate between Congress and the President on an Iran deal. At the very least, whichever side prevails in the passport matter will be bolstered politically in its fight with the other side.”
- In The Atlantic, Garrett Epps remembers Dave Frohnmayer, the former Oregon attorney general who “relentlessly fought against allowing the Free Exercise Clause to cover peyote religion. His victory in that case—Employment Division v. Smith—was widely criticized; both Congress and his own state legislature disowned the result.”
- Also in The Atlantic, Kent Greenfield discusses the current controversy over racist speech at the University of Oklahoma and criticizes the fact that, “[i]f this situation were litigated before the current Supreme Court, the students would almost certainly win.”
- At the Daily Kos, Denise Oliver Velez wishes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who turned eighty-two yesterday, a happy birthday.
- At Salon, Sean McElwee and Catherine Ruetschelin anticipate the Court’s decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, arguing that the Court’s decision “could make the wealth gap explode.”
- Monica Campbell of PRI’s The World (via MSN.com) has the story of Fauzia Din, the U.S. citizen whose efforts to obtain a visa for her husband turned into a Supreme Court case.
- At the Federal Regulations Advisor, Leland Beck discusses last week’s decision in Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, arguing that the Court’s “functional, rather than structural, analysis puts a narrow question to rest and leaves the nondelegation doctrine as moribund as ever – in some ways a disappointing result.”
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