Turtle Talk: Ideology matters in Supreme Court's major decisions

Monday, June 25, 2012  

"This week, the Supreme Court likely will strike down the individual mandate of the health care law, and perhaps go so far as to strike the whole thing down. It is telling to hear about how Democratic Congressional leaders never took seriously arguments that the health care law was unconstitutional.

Under the current constitutional law, it IS constitutional. But the Supreme Court can use a vehicle like Obamacare to drastically change constitutional law. That’s how judicial review works. Ideology matters. Politics matters. Elections matter. Only the hardest cases reach the Supreme Court, and those cases are usually cases where prior precedent fails. The vast majority of Americans want Obamacare struck down. It would be shocking if the most conservative Supreme Court in memory DIDN’T strike it down.

Tribal advocates should be feeling deja vu, of course. The Court changes Indian law all the time. Ideology matters here, more than politics (because most Americans couldn’t care less about Indian law)."

Get the Story:
Legislating in Light of the ideology and Politics of the Super-Legislature (On Obamacare and an Oliphant Fix) (Turtle Talk 6/25)