You can’t assess the Supreme Court’s surprise jump today into the Obamacare subsidies pseudo-controversy without appreciating that there was a big organized effort in the conservative legal community to create the political and legal space for the Supreme Court to intervene. Part of that effort involved working to delegitimize in advance the pending en banc decision of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as purely political and without legal foundation. Here’s the full rundown on what was being done on the outside to push the Supreme Court toward the decision it made today.
Our full story on the Supreme Court’s big Obamacare move this afternoon.
The Supreme Court in a surprise move has decided to take up the issue of whether the tax subsidies that are essential to the Obamacare economic model are available on the federal exchanges. The tendentious argument from Obamacare opponents is that the law itself, in one obscure provision, only provides for subsidies on exchanges set up by states — even though that was clearly not what the law as whole means or what Obamacare proponents in Congress or the White House intended. So just to be clear, this is a very significant legal attack on the law, even though it was a laughable line of attack when it was first initiated.
Today’s move by the Supreme Court is a surprise because the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals is about to review the same issue in the Halbig case. Oral arguments are scheduled in Halbig next month. Nothing is certain, of course, but the full DC Circuit is expected to reverse an early decision of a three-judge panel that invalidated the subsidies. So that was supposed to be the next big legal decision on the issue.
But in the meantime, anti-Obamacare plaintiffs in another similar case asked the Supreme Court to review the decision of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals which upheld the subsidies. That case, King v. Burwell, is what the Supreme Court agreed to take today.
Here’s the rub.
I’m doing a Reddit AMA at 1 PM eastern. Stop by at this link.
On Tuesday Coloradans elected a new virulently anti-gay state legislator and exorcist who among his other accomplishments once, purportedly, performed an exorcism on President Obama – which apparently didn’t work. But Gordon Klingenschmitt also argues that one of the potential cures for homosexuality is spanking – which suggests that Klingenschmitt has either never been to a Pride parade or is perhaps a Ted Haggard in the making.
One chart explains why the Dems can’t win the House no matter how people vote.
Quadruple amputee Michael Petrozzino sought as suspect in the murder of his parents.
GOP campaign chief thanks Dems for sidelining Obama “their best messenger.”
This plays to my own basic beliefs about politics and what I’ve referred to as “policy literalism” so it’s preaching to the choir. But TPM Reader TS responds to our Reflecting on Tuesday #2 …
Apropos of the comment that Dems are reluctant to outline robust economic opportunity policies because they know they cannot fully retake the Congress for some years, that underlines a huge problem for Democratic politicians: they vastly underestimate the value of political signaling, communicating a direction they are fighting for to constituents.