SCOTUS TIME

So little local stuff to write about perhaps some not controversial national and universal subjects can be looked at.

Unnoticed since the new session of SCOTUS began have been several actions that have not yet been at the level of decisions.

No major cases have been heard and in most of those cases the decisions are not released until late June, although some important ones are rapidly disposed.

One ruling the court will ultimately have to make will impact on the future of the ACA. The law is written in such a manner that there is an implication that Federal subsidies for Health Insurance was only for those exchanges that were State, not Federal, sponsored.

The case now awaiting the Court’s attention, and likely to be considered by the Justices as soon as their private Conference on October 31, is King v. Burwell.  It seeks review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upholding the award of subsidies to consumers who obtained insurance through a federally run exchange.   That ruling conflicted directly with one by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, allowing the subsidies only in the sixteen states where insurance exchanges are operated by the states themselves.

If the Court comes up with a strict interpretation of the law those who have received their health insurance in the other 34 states and the District of Columbia will not be eligible for any subsidy.

Another ruling pending the court hearing was made this Wednesday staying a Texas law that would have closed almost all the abortion clinics in that state.  If that law is allowed to stand imagine the impact possible in all other states with an active right to life organizations.

“Over the dissents of three Justices, the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening barred Texas from enforcing two parts of its new abortion-restriction law — one part as it applied throughout the state, the other as it applied to two clinics in the southwest part of the state.”

Once more the "Republic of Texas" or so it seems is in the middle of a landmark constitutional challenge. In a case that will do so in the near future  “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday afternoon gave the state of Texas permission to enforce its strict voter ID law, finding that a federal judge’s ruling last week barring the use of that law “substantially disrupts the election process . . . just nine days before early voting begins” next Monday. The three-judge panel commented that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly instructed courts to carefully consider the importance of preserving the status quo on the eve of an election.”

Permitting, even temporarily, this law is going to de enfranchise a significant number of lower economic class voters.

This is from a Times article: A Supreme Court order legalizing same-sex marriage in five states reverberated further on Thursday, with the attorney general of West Virginia conceding that its ban on same-sex marriage was no longer defensible but South Carolina officials vowing to keep fighting to restrict marriage to a man and a woman.

Since the Supreme Court decision on Monday and a ruling from a federal circuit court on Tuesday, new developments have appeared almost hourly as gay-rights advocates press for action in nine other states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming. (ERIK ECKHOLM-OCT. 9, 2014)

These are just a few SCOTUS actions in the past few days that may impact our lives.


Notice: I will be very busy with family for the next few days, and do not expect to have the time to post even comments before Monday.
I will post some thing Friday if I can find time to write.