Civil Rights
Block on Trump's Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court
The Obama Administration has doubled down on its Affordable Care Act bet, declining to seek an en banc appeal from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Justice Department announced the decision on Monday, which clears the way for Supreme Court review before the 2012 presidential election.
We assumed that the controversial, individual mandate was designed to take effect in 2014 to allow the president to tout the plan during the 2012 election cycle without criticism of the inevitable glitches that arise in new programs. Now, the Court could strike the mandate before next November.
Why would President Obama take that risk? We have a few theories.
Obamacare's appellate court record stands at 1-1-3. The Sixth Circuit upheld the individual mandate provision, the Eleventh Circuit struck it, and the Third, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits have dismissed individual mandate challenges for lack of standing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is the wild card; it heard oral arguments in an Obamacare challenge last Friday.
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