Wow an honest opinion from a lib, imagine that. 
Obamacare and the Supreme Court: Should Elena Kagan recuse herself? - Slate Magazine
.Should Elena Kagan recuse herself in the ACA case?
By Eric Segall
Doing the right thing is easy when nothing important is at stake. Doing the right thing is much harder when there is a lot to lose. Elena Kagan is a loyal Democrat who owes her Supreme Court appointment to President Barack Obama.* She is poised to review the constitutionality of Obama’s health care statute, which, if invalidated, might do serious damage to his re-election campaign as well as the Democratic Party. Even though it would be a hard decision to make, Elena Kagan should recuse herself from hearing challenges to the act.
So far it appears that only Republicans and conservatives want Kagan to recuse herself from hearing the case, while liberals and Democrats take the opposing view. I have been a liberal constitutional law professor for more than 20 years, and a loyal Democrat. I believe the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and that it would be truly unfortunate for the country (and the party) if the court strikes it down. I also recognize that there is a much greater chance of the court erroneously striking down the PPACA if Kagan recuses herself. That said, I believe that as a matter of both principle and law, Kagan should not hear the case.
First the law: A federal statute requires that any “justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Federal law also requires that a judge recuse herself if the judge previously served in governmental employment “and in that capacity participated as a ... counsel, adviser, or material witness concerning the proceeding or has expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.”
As many have pointed out, there are legitimate arguments that these rules point to recusal. Was Kagan a “counsel” or “adviser” on this issue? We know that she was on an e-mail exchange between her top deputy, Neal Katyal, and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, about a meeting to discuss the litigation strategy for the ACA litigation, and lawyers in her office would be present. We also know she attended at least one meeting where the litigation was discussed. It is of course possible that she personally stayed out of those discussions. We don’t know how fully Kagan was involved because the White House (perhaps for legitimate reasons unrelated to this controversy) has not released all of the relevant emails about the matter. We might never know, but that lack of certainty points to recusal, because it raises serious doubts.
We also know that Kagan wrote an e-mail to Laurence Tribe, a famous Harvard constitutional law professor who was also working for the administration at the time the law passed, in which she said, “I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.” The email's subject line was "fingers and toes crossed today!"
Would these two constitutional law giants celebrate the passing of a law they believed violated the Constitution? Professor Tribe has since given many public statements that he believes the lawis fully constitutional. Certainly, had she written to him, “Larry, this constitutional law finally passed,” she would have had to recuse. The issue becomes whether this email consists of an expression of opinion “concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.” That’s a harder question.
A few years ago, Justice Scalia recused himself from a case challenging the constitutionality of the “under God” provision of the Pledge of Allegiance because he made a few for offhand comments about the case during a speech. Most liberals approved of Scalia’s decision at the time. The case for Kagan’s recusal, while different, seems even stronger to me
Obamacare and the Supreme Court: Should Elena Kagan recuse herself? - Slate Magazine
