Supreme Court's new function in govt: Writing new laws from the bench

[PaintMyHouse]

Thank you SC, for two good and sane decisions today. Now throw in the Gay Marriage equality we we'll have a winner, winner, winner for a saner, and therefore better, society...

 

[Skylar]

What the court did was determine the legislative intent of the law. And there's no credible argument that congress didn't intent state residents without state exchanges to have access to the federal exchange.

I am glad you finally admit that what the SCOTUS did is beyond their authority. They are not to rule on intent but the letter of the law and that they did not do. Even at that the intent was that the states would not receive subsidizes you have been shown that fact. So the SCOTUS made law once again.

I never thought they would do otherwise but at least be honest about what happened.

"They are not to rule on intent but the letter of the law and that they did not do.": That is completely and utterly wrong.

"A cardinal rule of construction is that a statute should be read as a harmonious whole, with its various parts being interpreted within their broader statutory context in a manner that furthers statutory purposes. Justice Scalia, who has been in the vanguard of efforts to redirect statutory construction toward statutory text and away from legislative history, has aptly characterized this general approach. “Statutory construction . . . is a holistic endeavor. A provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme — because the same terminology is used elsewhere in a context that makes its meaning clear, or because only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law.”
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-589.pdf

Oh no doubt there is a lot of BS and what you posted doesn't not speak to what I said. What i get out of this is if the law in one place says that the sky is blue but in another says that the sky has a color one can not interpret that to mean that the sky is any color other then blue.

In this case where is the other part of the law that clarifies what the wording says and the author says was the intent of the wording? Where? The intent, in accordance with the AUTHOR, was to force states to set up exchanges, what possible language is their within the bill that changes that intent?

It does speak to what you posted. You said that the intent of the legislature did not matter. It does. This statute clearly stated that exchanges could be set up by the state or, if the state did not set one up, by the federal government. The construction by those trying to derail this law made no sense because it would have made the entire thing collapse. Do you think that they wrote the law intending for it to collapse? Do you really want the judicial branch to toss out a law on the basis of an ambiguity between two parts when it is clear that the legislature intended for the subsidies to be available to all who are entitled to them?

"It is well to keep in mind, however, that the overriding objective of statutory construction is to effectuate statutory purpose. As Justice Jackson put it more than 50 years ago, “[h]owever well these rules may serve at times to decipher legislative intent, they long have been subordinated to the doctrine that courts will construe the details of an act in conformity with its dominating general purpose, will read text in the light of context and will interpret the text so far as the meaning of the words fairly permits so as to carry out in particular cases the generally expressed legislative policy.”11

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-589.pdf

You like skyler are confusing two issues which Gruber did address.

There's no confusion save your own:

Yeah, so these health-insurance Exchanges, you can go on ma.healthconnector.org and see ours in Massachusetts, will be these new shopping places and they’ll be the place that people go to get their subsidies for health insurance. In the law, it says if the states don’t provide them, the federal backstop will.

You say what Gruber 'really meant' was the exchanges. Gruber says otherwise:

At this time, there was also substantial uncertainty about whether the federal backstop would be ready on time for 2014. I might have been thinking that if the federal backstop wasn't ready by 2014, and states hadn't set up their own exchange, there was a risk that citizens couldn't get the tax credits right away. ...

But there was never any intention to literally withhold money, to withhold tax credits, from the states that didn’t take that step. That’s clear in the intent of the law and if you talk to anybody who worked on the law. My subsequent statement was just a speak-o—you know, like a typo.

Jonathan Gruber on Halbig Says Quote on Exchanges Was a Mistake The New Republic

Gruber is a better source on what Gruber meant than you are.

And this statement from Gruber is also very telling:

There are few people who worked as closely with Obama administration and Congress as I did, and at no point was it ever even implied that there’d be differential tax credits based on whether the states set up their own exchange. And that was the basis of all the modeling I did, and that was the basis of any sensible analysis of this law that’s been done by any expert, left and right.

Jonathan Gruber on Halbig Says Quote on Exchanges Was a Mistake The New Republic

He's right. Any senisible analysis of the law would come the conclusion that 'at no point was it ever even implied that there’d be differential tax credits based on whether the states set up their own exchange'.

And a sensible analysis of the ruling did come to that conclusion: today's USSC ruling.

 

[Freewill]

Here is the story some say is the most comprehensive single piece of the drafting error.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/u...-been-left-by-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

At the end it includes this:

"A powerful line of judicial thinking holds that courts do not have a license to disregard or revise the clear language of a law."

Taken by itself, that is correct. However, when the clear language of the law operates to achieve an illogical interpretation of what the law (or a contract) undisputedly set out to accomplish, the language cannot be clear, and court's have to interpret what was meant. This just isn't as earthshaking as some like to put it. Or as a law professor I know said to his students, "I've seen constitutional crises, lived through them, but Obamacare isn't one."

If the language isn't clear then the SCOTUS should send it back to the states, no pretend to be mind readers. What they did is far from deciding if abortion on demand is Constitution. They interpreted law, changed the law, that is not suppose to be their function. Now we have to live with it and with it for every court that follows.

As for the law professor, a liberal backing liberals not surprising.

 

[paddymurphy]

He wrote the f...ing law who better knows the intent?

Then why are you ignoring this statement from Gruber:

"In the law, it says if the states don’t provide them, the federal backstop will."

I not once ignored that statement. The backstop is to the state exchanges if the state does not set them up. The tax credit is the carrot to try and force them to do so. So why do you ignore this statement: "I think what’s important to remember politically about this, is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits. But your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these Exchanges, and that they’ll do it. But you know, once again, the politics can get ugly around this."[/QUOTE]
Here, how about we consider what those who actually did write it have to say.

The answer, from interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans involved in writing the law, is that the words were a product of shifting politics and a sloppy merging of different versions. Some described the words as “inadvertent,” “inartful” or “a drafting error.” But none supported the contention of the plaintiffs, who are from Virginia.
“I don’t ever recall any distinction between federal and state exchanges in terms of the availability of subsidies,” said Olympia J. Snowe, a former Republican senator from Maine who helped write the Finance Committee version of the bill.

“It was never part of our conversations at any point,” said Ms. Snowe, who voted against the final version of the Senate bill. “Why would we have wanted to deny people subsidies? It was not their fault if their state did not set up an exchange.” The four words, she said, were perhaps “inadvertent language,” adding, “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Former Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, said there may have been “some sloppiness in the drafting” of the bill. Mr. Bingaman, who was a member of both committees that developed the measure, said he was surprised that the lawsuit had reached the Supreme Court because the words in dispute appeared to be a “drafting error.”



“As far as I know, it escaped everyone’s attention, or it would have been deleted, because it clearly contradicted the main purpose of the legislation,” Mr. Bingaman said. He added, “In all the discussion in the committees and on the floor, I didn’t ever hear anybody suggest that this kind of distinction between federal and state exchanges was in the bill.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/u...-been-left-by-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

What they intended when they passed the law is what matters; not what an economist who wrote not a single word of the law thought years later.

 

[bendog]

they did not change the law, grasshopper.

 

[paddymurphy]

Utter bullshit. Again, I offer your own video:

The subsidies for health insurance are exactly he's talking about. You're again ignoring all but one sentence in your video and then demanding we do the same.

Laughing....no. The world doesn't disappear just because you close your eyes. Nor is the USSC obligated to ignore whatever is inconvenient to your argument.

On the contrary, I'm quoting what he said. All of it. You're the one has ignored all but ONE sentence, ignored all context, and everything else Gruber has said.

See above at how gloriously irrelevant your willful ignorance actually is.

My gosh, here it is in its entirity:

Questioner: You mentioned the health-information Exchanges for the states, and it is my understanding that if states don’t provide them, then the federal government will provide them for the states.

Gruber: Yeah, so these health-insurance Exchanges, you can go on ma.healthconnector.org and see ours in Massachusetts, will be these new shopping places and they’ll be the place that people go to get their subsidies for health insurance. In the law, it says if the states don’t provide them, the federal backstop will. The federal government has been sort of slow in putting out its backstop, I think partly because they want to sort of squeeze the states to do it. I think what’s important to remember politically about this, is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits. But your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these Exchanges, and that they’ll do it. But you know, once again, the politics can get ugly around this.

That is exactly what is in the video, so I am ignoring NOTHING.

Gruber was not a legislator and did not work for Congress. His opinions are just that: his opinions. The legislators that passed the law did not intend that state exchanges set up by the federal government would not be able to provide subsidies.

He wrote the f...ing law who better knows the intent? Those democrats in congress that could not have possibly have read the damn thing? You are grasping at straws. You don't know there intent any more then they probably knew. THAT is why it should have been sent back to congress for clarification. Why do you and others have so much trouble with the people's representatives writing law and not 9 old men and women?

He did not write the fucking law. He and many other contributed to it. He, personally, did not write a single word of the law. He provided economic models to explain what would happen. He is not an attorney and had no role in writing the language the Court ruled on today. You assholes have tried every means to overturn the will of the people represented by this law. This latest was a shameless attempt based not on the merits of the law or any constitutional issue but based on taking three words out of the context of the 2000 page statute. You lost. Shut up about it already.

It wasn't my will and by all polls it was not the will of the people.

Care to tell me why he was called to testify in the trial on the very subject if he didn't know what he was talking about? Care to cite what part of the law to which you refer? Care to post any fact that is backed by anything other then your unsubstantiated diatribe?

Actually, it was the will of the people. We pass laws by representative government; not by taking polls. And there is no poll out there where the majority want it repealed. And even polls that show more people oppose the law who support it, about one third of those who oppose it do so because they favored single payer. The minority position has always been the Republican position of doing nothing.

 

[Skylar]

The answer, from interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans involved in writing the law, is that the words were a product of shifting politics and a sloppy merging of different versions. Some described the words as “inadvertent,” “inartful” or “a drafting error.” But none supported the contention of the plaintiffs, who are from Virginia.
“I don’t ever recall any distinction between federal and state exchanges in terms of the availability of subsidies,” said Olympia J. Snowe, a former Republican senator from Maine who helped write the Finance Committee version of the bill.

“It was never part of our conversations at any point,” said Ms. Snowe, who voted against the final version of the Senate bill. “Why would we have wanted to deny people subsidies? It was not their fault if their state did not set up an exchange.” The four words, she said, were perhaps “inadvertent language,” adding, “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Former Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, said there may have been “some sloppiness in the drafting” of the bill. Mr. Bingaman, who was a member of both committees that developed the measure, said he was surprised that the lawsuit had reached the Supreme Court because the words in dispute appeared to be a “drafting error.”



“As far as I know, it escaped everyone’s attention, or it would have been deleted, because it clearly contradicted the main purpose of the legislation,” Mr. Bingaman said. He added, “In all the discussion in the committees and on the floor, I didn’t ever hear anybody suggest that this kind of distinction between federal and state exchanges was in the bill.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/u...-been-left-by-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

What they intended when they passed the law is what matters; not what an economist who wrote not a single word of the law thought years later.

So we have all sources including gruber saying one thing. And Freewill insisting that they're all wrong, and what they 'really meant' was something completely different.

Yeah, that dog won't hunt. And as the USSC ruling elegantly demonstrates, didn't.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

CJ Roberts is every Progressive Wet Dream Activist Justice. He's the Modern Warren

 

[paddymurphy]

Here is the story some say is the most comprehensive single piece of the drafting error.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/u...-been-left-by-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

At the end it includes this:

"A powerful line of judicial thinking holds that courts do not have a license to disregard or revise the clear language of a law."

Taken by itself, that is correct. However, when the clear language of the law operates to achieve an illogical interpretation of what the law (or a contract) undisputedly set out to accomplish, the language cannot be clear, and court's have to interpret what was meant. This just isn't as earthshaking as some like to put it. Or as a law professor I know said to his students, "I've seen constitutional crises, lived through them, but Obamacare isn't one."

If the language isn't clear then the SCOTUS should send it back to the states, no pretend to be mind readers. What they did is far from deciding if abortion on demand is Constitution. They interpreted law, changed the law, that is not suppose to be their function. Now we have to live with it and with it for every court that follows.

As for the law professor, a liberal backing liberals not surprising.

Right. John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy are liberals. In what delusional world is that true. And, no, when language is ambiguous, you do not send it back you determine the meaning of the words by reading the entire statute and consider what it was intended to do. That is what the now dozen or so Federal Judges who have rejected this asinine challenge did and did to correctly. Are there any other topics with which you have no education or experience that you feel qualified to discuss?

 

[paddymurphy]

CJ Roberts is every Progressive Wet Dream Activist Justice. He's the Modern Warren

"He's the Modern Warren" There could be no higher praise for him than to compare him to one of the great Chief Justices this nation has ever had, probably only second to John Marshall.

 

[Skylar]

Here is the story some say is the most comprehensive single piece of the drafting error.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/u...-been-left-by-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

At the end it includes this:

"A powerful line of judicial thinking holds that courts do not have a license to disregard or revise the clear language of a law."

Taken by itself, that is correct. However, when the clear language of the law operates to achieve an illogical interpretation of what the law (or a contract) undisputedly set out to accomplish, the language cannot be clear, and court's have to interpret what was meant. This just isn't as earthshaking as some like to put it. Or as a law professor I know said to his students, "I've seen constitutional crises, lived through them, but Obamacare isn't one."

If the language isn't clear then the SCOTUS should send it back to the states, no pretend to be mind readers. What they did is far from deciding if abortion on demand is Constitution. They interpreted law, changed the law, that is not suppose to be their function. Now we have to live with it and with it for every court that follows.

As for the law professor, a liberal backing liberals not surprising.

Right. John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy are liberals. In what delusional world is that true. And, no, when language is ambiguous, you do not send it back you determine the meaning of the words by reading the entire statute and consider what it was intended to do. That is what the now dozen or so Federal Judges who have rejected this asinine challenge did and did to correctly. Are there any other topics with which you have no education or experience that you feel qualified to discuss?

Its classic conspiracy faire. Anyone who doesn't ape the conspiracy....becomes part of it.

 

[bendog]

CJ Roberts is every Progressive Wet Dream Activist Justice. He's the Modern Warren

Well, that was certainly the view from the "other" side after Citizens United.

I thought this interesting ... if a bit technical

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-surprising-move-leftward.html?abt=0002&abg=1

 

[Wry Catcher]

CJ Roberts is every Progressive Wet Dream Activist Justice. He's the Modern Warren

But he voted to repeal election funding reform - that gave you a wet dream Frankie. And you still have Alito, Thomas and Scalia working hard to take America back to the 18th Century.

 

[Freewill]

Listen to these two videos, it is Grubers testimony in congress. Maybe Skyler is onto something, this Gruber guy is a jerk.

 

[Care4all]

What the court did was determine the legislative intent of the law.

Correction: They lied about the legislative intent of the law.

And there's no credible argument that congress didn't intent state residents without state exchanges to have access to the federal exchange.

Correction: The guy who wrote the law, said that was exactly its intent: To coerce states into forming their own exchanges, by withholding money from the ones who didn't.

You're 0-for-2 so far in this thread. Want to go for the trifecta?

Little Acorn,

-every Senator and Representative that voted for the law, intended for the Federal Exchange to be the back up, for States that did not want to build their own state exchanges and receive the money to do so

-every Congressional and Administrative agencies that were responsible for scoring the Bill, for coming up with a financial number of how much this bill would cost the tax payers, and give this information to the Senate and the House before any voting on the Bill, all the actuaries in the CBO and the GAO calculated the cost of subsidies for all states, including the States that would use the Federal Exchange as their State Agent, and the price of what subsidies in ALL States, including the States that Chose to use the Federal exchange as their State's agent for the ACA were INCLUDED in their estimates.

-Would the Federal government or any of those voting yes on the bill that passed by a Majority in both Houses, agree to spend millions upon millions on setting up Exchanges for the States that wanted the Fed to do such, have done so KNOWING OR THINKING that they would spend this money for NAUGHT, for no one to be able to afford the Health care Insurance in the Affordable care act? seriously?

-Would all State Legislators vote for and Governors sign a bill in their State, voting on using the Federal Exchange or their own, have done differently if they believed the Law WOULD NOT PAY for their citizens within their State, qualifying for Federal subsidies....? Every single State voted to set up their own exchange or a federal one, based on how they interpreted the Law, and UNDERSTOOD the meaning of the Law, WHICH WAS, that their citizens WOULD GET subsidies, even using a Federal Exchange set up for their State.

-Would the Federal and Congressional budget estimates over the next 10 years, included the cost of the ACA subsidies for Federal and State exchanges if it were not understood by ALL that the Feds would pay subsidies for every citizen buying in the exchanges?

USE YOUR HEAD on your shoulders boy!

The Supreme court made the only decision they could make, which was support those who voted for this law, and what they all voted for....subsidies for ALL citizens that qualify on any of the exchanges...

Every aspect of the Law, was written and appropriated for: the subsidies given to ALL qualified...

the Intent of the Law is important, and that intent is very very very clear....from those who voted for it to those who even opposed it, to those Governor's in the State, to those actuaries calculating the estimated cost, the Insurance Companies who set up Policies on the Federal Exchange, down to the American people themselves.

It is what it is and what it was always meant to be.

 

[Contumacious]

[QUOTE="Little-Acorn, post: 11679859, member: 3254" ]
Forums > US Discussion > Politics >

1. 
   Supreme Court's new function in govt: Writing new laws from the bench

.[/QUOTE]


SCOTUS FUNCTIONS

1- ALLOW THE "JUSTICES" TO ENJOY A NICE SALARY, FEDERAL BLUECROSS/BLUE SHIELD (NOT OBAMA CARE) AND THE PRESTIGE ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR POSITION

2- PERPETRATE THE FRAUD THAT THERE IS STILL ARTICLE III JUDICIAL REVIEW

.

 

[Freewill]

 

[Freewill]

 

[paddymurphy]

And here you are posting and demonstrating how right he is about how stupid some Americans are.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

CJ Roberts is every Progressive Wet Dream Activist Justice. He's the Modern Warren

But he voted to repeal election funding reform - that gave you a wet dream Frankie. And you still have Alito, Thomas and Scalia working hard to take America back to the 18th Century.

I'll explain this to you one time, Honey Boo Boo. CJ Roberts sides with the Statists on the things that truly matter to Statists: taking control of the lives of Citizens (subjects) through "health care" laws