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BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter
A little-nrabroad
iced case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this term could signal a willingness by conservative justices to accept President Obama's health-care plan as constitutional, according to a University of Chicago law professor.
Aziz Huq told a gathering of lawyers at the Mayer Brown law firm Friday that the U.S. vs. Comstock case should give supporters of the health-care bill hope because seven of the nine justices ruled in this case that the federal government can exercise power nrabroad
specifically spelled out in the Constitution.
In the Comstock case, argued by Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the Obama administration maintained that the federal government had the right to indefinitely detain sex offenders who had finished serving their sentences.
A North Carolina federal court said none of the federal government's "enumerated powers" in the Constitution covers civil detention of offenders who have finished serving their sentences.
But Kagan argued that Congress' power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers" (also known as the "elastic clause") covered it, and seven of the nine justices to varying degrees bought that.
Various states have filed or are filing challenges to the health law's "individual mandate" that everyone buy health insurance, saying that oversteps Congress' enumerated powers.
"Comstock is nrabroad
ionally a signal that seven of the nine justices would reject the constitutional challenge to the individual mandate provision," said Huq, who has defended some of the Guantanamo detainees.
Most of the panelists at the American Constitution Society's annual review of Supreme Court cases predicted the court's five-member conservative majority would continue limiting federal power.
Colleen Connell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois, cited outgoing Justice John Paul Stevens accusing the court's majority of "an inconsistent deference to Congress."
The court's conservative majority called a cross in the Mojave Desert on federal land transferred to a private group by Congress a "religiously neutral" tribute to the war dead that did nrabroad
violate the separation of church and state.
"They claim they are really defering to congressional judgment," Connell sneered. "As Stevens pointed out, there was no congressional debate." The bill was inserted into defense appropriation bill.
In the court's more highly publicized "Citizens United" case throwing out limits on campaign spending by corporations, the supreme court majority dismissed more than 100,000 pages of congressional testimony and plenty of debate, Connell said.
I was hoping it would be shrabroad
down. Hopefully there is still a chance for repeal.
A little-nrabroad
iced case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this term could signal a willingness by conservative justices to accept President Obama's health-care plan as constitutional, according to a University of Chicago law professor.
Aziz Huq told a gathering of lawyers at the Mayer Brown law firm Friday that the U.S. vs. Comstock case should give supporters of the health-care bill hope because seven of the nine justices ruled in this case that the federal government can exercise power nrabroad
specifically spelled out in the Constitution.
In the Comstock case, argued by Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the Obama administration maintained that the federal government had the right to indefinitely detain sex offenders who had finished serving their sentences.
A North Carolina federal court said none of the federal government's "enumerated powers" in the Constitution covers civil detention of offenders who have finished serving their sentences.
But Kagan argued that Congress' power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers" (also known as the "elastic clause") covered it, and seven of the nine justices to varying degrees bought that.
Various states have filed or are filing challenges to the health law's "individual mandate" that everyone buy health insurance, saying that oversteps Congress' enumerated powers.
"Comstock is nrabroad
ionally a signal that seven of the nine justices would reject the constitutional challenge to the individual mandate provision," said Huq, who has defended some of the Guantanamo detainees.
Most of the panelists at the American Constitution Society's annual review of Supreme Court cases predicted the court's five-member conservative majority would continue limiting federal power.
Colleen Connell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois, cited outgoing Justice John Paul Stevens accusing the court's majority of "an inconsistent deference to Congress."
The court's conservative majority called a cross in the Mojave Desert on federal land transferred to a private group by Congress a "religiously neutral" tribute to the war dead that did nrabroad
violate the separation of church and state.
"They claim they are really defering to congressional judgment," Connell sneered. "As Stevens pointed out, there was no congressional debate." The bill was inserted into defense appropriation bill.
In the court's more highly publicized "Citizens United" case throwing out limits on campaign spending by corporations, the supreme court majority dismissed more than 100,000 pages of congressional testimony and plenty of debate, Connell said.
I was hoping it would be shrabroad
down. Hopefully there is still a chance for repeal.