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Judge upset by Obama's comments on health care law
HOUSTON (AP) ? A federal appeals court judge on Tuesday seemed to take offense to comments President Barack Obama made earlier this week in which he warned that if the Supreme Courtoverturned his signature health care overhaul it would amount to overreach by an "unelected" court.
The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling later this year on whether to strike down some or all of the historic health care law.
During oral arguments in Houston in a separate challenge to another aspect of the federal health care law, U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith said Obama's comments troubled a number of people who have read them as a challenge to the authority of federal courts.
"I'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect, I'm sure you've heard about them, that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed unelected judges to strike acts of Congress that have enjoyed, he was referring of course to Obamacare, to what he termed a broad consensus and majorities in both houses of Congress," Smith told Dana Kaersvang, an attorney with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.
On Monday, Obama issued a direct challenge to the Supreme Court, saying he didn't believe the high court would take the "unprecedented" step of overturning a law passed by a strong majority of Congress.
"I want to be sure that you are telling us that the Attorney General and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts through unelected judges to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases," Smith said.
A somewhat surprised Kaersvang told Smith the Justice Department does recognize this power by the courts and made reference to a landmark 1803 case that formed the basis for judicial review.
However, Smith ordered Kaersvang to submit a letter to the appeals court by Thursday stating the position of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department on the concept of judicial review.
"The letter needs to be at least three pages, single spaced, no less and it needs to be specific. It needs to make specific reference to the president's statements," Smith said.
The case before the appeals court was brought in part by a spine and joint hospital in East Texas that is challenging the constitutionality of a portion of the health care law that restricts physician-owned hospitals from expanding or building new facilities.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a telephone call late Tuesday seeking comment.
White House officials had no comment on Smith's statements, instead referring to comments Obama made earlier Tuesday at the annual meeting of The Associated Press in Washington.
At the meeting, Obama said the Supreme Court "is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it. ... I have enormous confidence that in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the Court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has."
Re: Judge upset by Obama's comments on health care law
Oh good.
Because it wasn't bad enough having both political parties and two branches of government get all publicly butthurt at every dumb, base-boosting comment against them.
I'm an Obama and a ACA supporter and all, but to me this smacked of the same old "judicial activism" whine that the republicans have beaten to death.
Argue your case in court. If you lose, take your lumps and rewrite the law. Federal judges are unelected because the freaking constitution made them that way for a reason. They are SUPPOSED to be independent of public opinion.
Yeah, f#*k those checks and balances. Giving all the power to elected officials sounds like a great idea, especially the current crop. I mean, look at all they've been able to accomplish and how well they get along!
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The more I think about this this isn't just whining.... this smacks of a threat.
Yes, let's give this man four more years of power...really?
KateAggie...love the siggie....which reminds me I need to put a pic in mine and I have to dig up the post where Druid told me how do it.
But, but -- Obama wants to/promised to fundamentally transform American (even if how he plans to do it is unconstitutional) and that dang Supreme Court is getting in his way! Add the open mic comment to the Russian leader -- "I'll have more flexibility after the election" -- and we have more proof of the "real" Obama.
When all you have left is to attack --y ou have lost.
Have the board liberals not woken up yet this morning? The balance of opinion in this thread is off.
But yeah, I understand he's playing political games, but I wish more of the US was educated enough on the role of the 3 branches to call him out on it. Or that they believed enough in the purpose of those three branches to stand up for the system. What exactly does Pres. Obama want the SCOTUS to do (in general, not just this case) if they shouldn't overturn any law that congress makes/president signs?
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I'll be the liberal to chime in...
I really think he did a bad job of educating the public of how this law works. The benefits of it are huge, yet everyone is hung up on the mandate. The benefits don't work though unless we have the mandate.
If the Ds had been out stumping for the last 2 years touting the mandate as "personal responsiblity" and explaining how you can't be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, etc. How the bill should lower cost of health insurance for everyone because the pool is bigger, how the bill will force insurance companies to return money if they don't spend most of their revenue on health care, etc.
The court is the court, I think the president can comment, but it would be better if one of his underlings did the commenting and he stayed above the fray.
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for some reason i read "judge" as "jude law" in the subject line and was all "wtf do i care what jude law thinks about american healthcare."
the end.
I do 98% of my Nesting from my phone, i.e., tiny screen and quick scrolling, and I misread things on here all the time. As a result, I have many moments where I think the board is full of crazy, who-cares?!? type threads.
why was it constitutional when Newt Gingrich proposed it 20 years ago?
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I disagree - the legislation is front-loaded with all the goodies we all want. If you ask even the most uninformed American, they will probably be able to tell you a few things about the very large, far-reaching legislation and those things will be the good things. People know there is no discrimination for pre-existing conditions. They know their kids can be on their plans until age 26. They know that there will be a massive expansion for the uninsured giving those folks insurrance. They also, by now, know they can get a lot of freebies in terms of preventative healthcare. So I think team Obama has done an excellent job as far as letting the public know the great things included (and both sides like these things).
The GOP should be doing a better job educating people on the negatives in a more specific manner. I think people will be surprised over the next few years at what happens on the down-side if this thing remains in effect. Other than the mandate - most people are not at all familiar with the downsides, except for maybe cost, but seeing as how half the country pays no federal income tax, that half isn't even worried about that part of it.
This isn't about Obamacare.
This is about the hilarity of our former constitutional law professor president making a comment that made it seem like he disagreed with Marbury v. Madison. Of course he knows the law, but he (and/or his speechwriters) are banking on some in the public not know the law. I laughed out loud reading about the events in the 5th Circuit. But then I'm a law geek.
Did you see last night's Daily Show? There was a hilarious bit about basically everybody claiming "judicial activism" when it's a decision they don't like.
I'm unsurprised although mildly annoyed that he made the statement, but I guess I don't see it as a "threat" the way some people have made it out to be. He's not talking about expanding the Court, is he?
This is exactly my question.
LOL! I was totally thinking about court packing yesterday! I definitely don't consider it a threat (because it would never work, the SC doesn't tend to get intimidated). I just think it sounds so stupid to say if you know anything about the courts and judicial review (which obviously Obama does). I didn't watch the Daily Show last night, but I will have to do that.
I completely agree with the bolded. That's why when it was posted yesterday as this ZOMG CAN YOU BELIEVE HE'S THREATENING THE COURT?! type of hysteria, I just rolled my eyes. I mean, yes, it's an eyeroll-worthy statement from a politician. But it's hardly pearl-clutching Obama-is-a-scary-power-mongering-tyrant material.
The Daily Show segment is just great in that it shows both conservatives and liberals crying "activism" and invoking Marbury.
But that's not even the point here. What does the President think the role of the SCOTUS is?
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Oh, definitely post-worthy. 2V said his comments sound like a threat (of what, I'm not sure), and I thought I remembered someone being really up in arms over this in another thread. It's definitely post-worthy. Not panic-worthy.
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i thought that's what judicial activism was. the judiciary doing something you don't like. what? that's not the definition on law.com?
Raise your hand if you thought it was a great idea when Gingrich proposed it. Actually, raise your hand if you were old enough to even remember it.
At this point, I don't even care (with regard to these comments) whether it is constitutional or not. I just think our Prez saying that the 3rd arm of govt. shouldn't have a say is at best, laughable, and at worst, extremely disturbing.
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Anything you can achieve through hard work, you could also just buy.
My hand is firmly down and ditto to the second point.
Also, I don't care if the law gives a million bucks to every adult and a college education to every child, if it's unconstitutional, the court's job is to strike it down.
That's it.
End of story.
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LOL, this is pretty much dead on, except I'd say everyone likes courts and judges in general until they disagree with them on something.
I think it was an asinine statement for Obama to say and like someone else said, a rookie "mistake" or comment or whatever. But I don't think it was a threat.....
I know. It's getting old.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DAnd it has to be three single-spaced pages! LOL. What a weird thing for the judge to order. Poor guy.