Constitutional attorney David Rivkin joins Tom Goldstein and Jonathan Turley on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight with Piers Morgan on the SCOTUS ruling on ObamaCare.
“This is not a victory for the Obama Administration.” – David Rivkin
“Congress has crossed a fundamental constitutional line.”
United States Supreme CourtAs the nation awaits one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of our time, efforts to sway the decision toward upholding ObamaCare are not in short supply. Some have the thin veneer of news articles; others carry the weight of admonition by the President himself. One can only conclude that such efforts are based on a sober assessment that overturning at least one linchpin of the law is a very real possibility.
The editors of this newsletter recall vividly how the efforts of Messers Rivkin and Casey to call attention to the unconstitutionality of the 2010 healthcare law were met with derision by professors, legislators, and, unsurprisingly, reporters and news “analysts.” The hearty laughs and chuckles have long since ceased.
David Rivkin and Harvard Law Prof to Face Off June 15
Washington D.C. – As the U.S. awaits the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), the various factions pro and con continue to line up and weigh in on both whether and how the controversial law will stand. David Rivkin, who led the 26-state case against the U.S. government in Florida’s 11th District Court (whose judge, Roger Vinson, ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, will meet Harvard Law professor Einer Elhauge, author of amicus briefs that assert the legality of the individual mandate. The debate is scheduled for 9:00 am, on Friday, June 15, at the Texas Bar Association’s Annual Conference in Houston.
For more information on the debate and the conference, visit www.texasbar.com.
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Constitutional Attorney David Rivkin to debate Harvard Law Professor at Texas Bar Association Meeting
The final word on the Obama administration’s signature health care law has yet to be spoken. As the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) looms, organizations throughout the nation are lining up speakers and events to present their opinions—whether a pre-decision debate that might sway an undecided justice, or a post-mortem discussion on how the justices got it right or wrong. Regardless of when the Supreme Court decision is handed down, the June 15 Texas Bar Association debate on the topic, the interchange promises to be both lively and substantive.
David Rivkin, an appellate attorney whom the Wall Street Journal credits with initiating the question of ObamaCare’s constitutionality and who represented the 26 states in the Florida health care lawsuit, will debate Harvard Law professor Einer Elhauge, who has filed amicus briefs asserting the legality of ObamaCare’s individual mandate. The debate is scheduled for 9:00 am, on Friday, June 15, at the Texas Bar Association’s Annual Conference in Houston.
If the Supreme Court upholds purchase mandates in health care, they will become a mainstay of federal regulation throughout the U.S. economy.
By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. And LEE A. CASEY
Since the Supreme Court’s historic three-day ObamaCare hearings in late March, the president and his supporters have tried to pressure the Justices into upholding that law, asserting that any other decision would overstep the court’s constitutional bounds. Ruling against ObamaCare would not be what the president called illegitimate “judicial activism,” but an appropriate exercise of the Supreme Court’s core constitutional role.
“Judicial activism” is one of those agreeably ambiguous terms that can support almost any criticism of the courts. Under our constitutional system, judicial activism entails judges rewriting rather than interpreting the laws, exercising “will instead of judgment,” in Alexander Hamilton’s phrase.
On January 4, 2012 President Barack Obama made four recess appointments. On that day, he appointed three people to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and installed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CRPB).
These “recess appointments” were immediately challenged as unconstitutional since the House was not officially in recess.
On February 1, 2012 Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) held a hearing on the recess appointments. Legal experts disagreed sharply on their legality.