And the law’s apologists are more worried than they admit.
American Spectator: Over the holiday weekend, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued an order reiterating his December 14 decision to strike down Obamacare. As expected, he also stayed enforcement of his ruling to allow time for a challenge in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by a group of Democrat-controlled states led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Most “news” reports focused exclusively on the stay, which comprises one page of the document, while ignoring twenty-nine pages that Judge O’Connor devotes to a detailed elucidation of his previous ruling. As this excerpt from the order makes clear, he’s confident he will be upheld:
If the judicial power encompasses ignoring unambiguous enacted text — the text citizens read to know what their representatives have done — to approximate what a judge believes Congress meant to do, but did not, then policymaking lies in the hands of unelected judges.… This the Constitution does not allow. This the Supreme Court does not allow… the Fifth Circuit is unlikely to disagree.
That 29 of the order’s 30 pages were ignored by the legacy media is significant. They have also studiously avoided substantive discussion of the judge’s December 14 decision, choosing instead to denounce him as a (gasp) conservative who (even worse) frequently ruled against the Obama administration. O’Connor has been criticized by all manner of legal “experts” whose arguments concentrate more on the president who appointed him than the text of his ruling. NPR, for example, pointed out that he was nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush. They augmented this sophisticated analysis with the opinion of a partisan law professor:
In case after case, what he has shown is that he has tended to side with the Republican attorneys general who are bringing ideological suits.… Judge O’Connor has been the go-to judge for Ken Paxton and Republican attorneys general who want to file ideological suits in any court across the country.
This assertion was made by Justin Nelson from the University of Texas, who recently ran as a Democrat in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat the lead plaintiff in this Obamacare case (Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton). Nelson ran on the explicit pledge to pull the Lone Star State out of the challenge to Obamacare brought by Paxton and 19 additional state AGs. He wrapped this pledge in the usual balderdash about protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but it’s hard to escape the impression that Nelson’s run is a desperate attempt to halt a lawsuit that may at long last bring down the unpopular and moribund health care “reform” law. MORE HERE
Equal Justice under the Law. Since obamacare fails that, it is not legitimate.
The longer the courts delay its disposal, the less credibilty they leave themselves.
Somebody should tell the Texas law professor that the CJ of the SCOTUS says that there is no such thing as an obongo judge or a Bush judge…..
If the Left really cares about people with pre-existing conditions then rather than destroying human freedom and playing little dictator the democratic party should start a voluntary charity where people can voluntarily contribute to this cause.
That this thought never even enters their heads tells you all you need to know.
This is huge!
@Anonymous January 4, 2019 at 3:43 pm
> Equal Justice under the Law. Since obamacare fails that, it is not legitimate.
As the “republic”. Big whoop.
CJ Roberts is hoping this never reaches his court. That he got away with shredding the Constitution under obama won’t be as palatable under a Trump admin (seeing as how “there are no presidential activist judges”)