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Tuesday round-up

Analyses of the Court’s decision in the health care cases keep rolling in, with a special focus on the Chief Justice. At Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston discusses the role of the Chief Justice and concludes that “[t]he leaks from within the ‘Roberts Court’ do raise some doubt about whether this Chief can count on solidarity from within.” As part of this blog’s symposium on NFIB v. Sebelius, Neil Siegel and Robert Cooter discuss their theory of the tax power and how it justifies the Chief Justice’s analysis. At the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel concentrates on the hypothetical “window tax” discussed in the Chief Justice’s opinion, arguing that it is “one more piece of evidence that Chief Justice Roberts was wrong in stating that the individual mandate ‘tax’ is not a direct tax.” And at the New York Review of Books Blog, Ronald Dworkin discusses why “almost no one seems willing to accept Roberts’ own explanation: that unelected judges should be extremely reluctant to overrule an elected legislature’s decision.”

Elsewhere, others look ahead to the impact of the decision. The Texas Tribune (via CBS News) and The New York Times report on the announcement by Texas Governor Rick Perry that the state will not implement two key parts of the Affordable Care Act, while Matthew Herper of Forbes reports on the prospect that the Court’s decision could result in the removal of several million people from the Medicaid rolls.  Taking a broader look at the ACA’s impact, Alan Greenblatt of NPR reports on the possibility that the Court’s ruling on the Medicaid expansion provision of the Act will “open the door to lawsuits challenging the federal government’s authority.”
At the New Yorker, Richard Socarides discusses the Chief Justice and the same-sex marriage cases headed to the Court; he concludes that “[a]fter the health-care decision, Ted Olson’s belief that he can get John Roberts’s vote for same-sex marriage is no joke.”  Adam Liptak of The New York Times also reports on the DOMA cases before the Court, adding that “both sides will be looking for support in the principles that animated the health care decision.”

Briefly:

  • As Chris Geidner reports at via chris geidner, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has asked the Court to review a decision by the Ninth Circuit “that had the effect of keeping same-sex partners’ health-care benefits in place in the state.”
  •  The Federalist Society’s SCOTUSreport blog summarizes (and also has video of) that group’s Supreme Court round-up, delivered by former Solicitor General Ted Olson.

Recommended Citation: Nabiha Syed, Tuesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 10, 2012, 10:17 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2012/07/tuesday-round-up-132/