Nicholas Bagley has an excellent summation of the standing/mootness question for the four King plaintiffs. There are a couple of lines in his post that I want to highlight:
Although King appears to lack standing, it’s hard to say for certain whether Hurst, Levy, or Luck do. One of them might well have standing, although I’m frankly not sure which one….Is the Court really untroubled by the very real possibility that the plaintiffs have used inaccurate or misleading declarations to manufacture a federal case? Or that the case may have become moot as to some of them? This isn’t your garden-variety suit; it’s precisely the sort of high-stakes ideological clash that—absent a plaintiff with a bona fide injury—standing doctrine is supposed to filter out.
Why is Professor Bagley surprised that the standing and mootness component of the plaintiff’s case is sloppy and rife with errors. It would have been surprising that everything on this score was clean, proper and straightforward.
The entire case has been built on deliberate misreading of the law, bullying of advocates that the evidence is clear that no one thought subsidies were contigent on states establishing exchanges, deliberate mistatements of what reporters wrote and then mansplaining to those reporters what they actually meant after the reporter responded, sadistic satisfaction, and a deliberate willingness to have the same plaintiff say multiple things in multiple cases.
Why should it be surprising that standing is a clusterfuck as well?
Buddy H
The only way this could be any more appalling would be if witness number 40 was revealed to be one of the plaintiffs.
Anonymous At Work
It’s also in King’s statements to a reporter that if he “wins” the lawsuit, he won’t get what he thinks he’ll get: not having a mandate. He’ll still have the mandate only no subsidies. That to me raises ethical concerns as well as standing/mootness issues.
Punchy
But to declare the plantiffs without standing would dismiss the case, and make all the writing of Scalia’s, Alito’s, and Thomas’ opinions (that they wrote over Christmas break) such a waste of time.
Davis X. Machina
Look at it from their — or the judge’s — point of view:
Salus populi, suprema lex. *.
Any means necessary.
When you’re standing at Armageddon, doing battle for the Lord, what’s a little thing like standing?
Freedom, capitalism, and the survival of the American way of life is what’s at stake here.
Cold civil war. Two peoples, one nation, but, so far at least, no shooting.
* Safety of the people is the highest law.
Bobby B.
It’s almost as if the plaintiffs were confident they’d find a sympathetic ear with most of the justices. As if there had been some collusion…
As Les Nessman would say, “the turkeys seemed ….organized.”
Citizen Alan
I just have to laugh (to keep from crying, I suppose) at the thought that standing is now a partisan issue and something to be considered only when the plaintiff is a Democrat.
Davis X. Machina
@Citizen Alan:
Did you know stare decisis is the Latin for “Just win, baby!”?
A lot of people don’t.
Matt McIrvin
I think it’s actually a bit surprising that it wasn’t so easy to find some deranged Fox News fan who wants to kill the ACA, but is in the income bracket where they really are being forced to buy in just because of the federal subsidies.
I guess part of the problem in finding such a person is that people with the right combination of income range and ideological preference are likely to be elderly and covered by Medicare.
MomSense
I’m definitely spooked.
JGabriel
Davis X. Machina:
There’s plenty of shooting, c.f. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Oscar Grant, and so on. And so on. There’s just no official declaration of war, yet.
boatboy_srq
@Anonymous At Work: If King wants to be impoverished to pay for his healthcare, perhaps we should let him. He doesn’t have to claim the tax credit, after all.
CONGRATULATIONS!
If it gets the Court where they want to go, this will be less than a speed bump for them.
boatboy_srq
@Citizen Alan: Existence is a partisan issue. I call your attention to Terri’s Law, for an example of how far the Reichwing is willing to take partisanship.
boatboy_srq
@Davis X. Machina: There you go suggesting we enact Latin Justice again….
cmorenc
With so many right-wing Obamacare – haters spread throughout the land, how could the legal team behind the King suit have NOT managed to find hundreds of willing plaintiffs whose qualifications for standing (and un-mootness) are as solid as they could possibly be made? The fact that they didn’t shows some really shoddy (lazy even) basic advocacy legwork, completely aside from the shaky foundations of their legal challenge. (Or what should be unsound before any SCOTUS not filled with five right-wing ideological zealots).
CONGRATULATIONS!
The sop you get thrown is gay marriage.
We’ve lost effective political speech (unless you’re a billionaire) we’re going to lose Obamacare, and next on the block will be collective bargaining.
That’s in addition to the wholly gutted 4th amendment protections we lost a few decades ago.
How’s our current liberal agenda working out for everyone? From where I’m sitting it looks like a miserable failure.
TR
Is this when the Republicans start chanting “rule of law! rule of law!”?
Roger Moore
Because that would involve admitting what is going on. People who have a lot invested in the system don’t want to admit what an absolute fail parade it’s degenerated into, especially because it would mean admitting their own role in allowing that degeneration to take place. That means they’ll keep shilling for the crazy until it gets to the point where they can no longer lie to themselves about just how crazy things are. For some people, that level is apparently nearly infinite.
Dolly Llama
I honestly don’t know if the plaintiffs have standing or not, but I can’t figure out whether a delay in adjudicating the case would be good or not. If these plaintiffs were ruled out, clearly they’d just put another group of stooges forward, and the case would eventually be heard at the SCOTUS. Part of me wants the high court to go ahead and rule now, and just settle it, and part of me wants it to be delayed. More and more anti-ACA states are realizing that they’re getting screwed opting out of the system. If the case were to be delayed on the standing issue, that’d give the ne’er-do-well more time to come quietly into the fold with “their own, locally palatable brand of healthcare.”
Frankensteinbeck
Scalia has already told us that facts don’t matter, only what you believe to be true.
@Davis X. Machina:
Whether or not a negro* can talk back to them is at stake here. I think the hissy fit the conservative justices have thrown every time Obama publicly disagrees with them should make that clear.
* ‘At least you’re one of the good ones, Clarence. You know your place.’
Belafon
@boatboy_srq: I think that case gets superceded by Texas attempting to keep a pregnant brain-dead woman on life support.
Dolly Llama
Also, someone — Mr. Mayhew, preferably — correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the insurance companies ALL ABOUT the ACA now, and wouldn’t an adverse ruling from the SCOTUS at this point be cause for a contributors’ insurrection in that quarter?
If so, we’ve got nothing to worry about.
Belafon
@Dolly Llama: There’s a battle between the business group and the get-that-nigger-out-of-the-white-house group going on in the Republican party. And Frankenstein’s monster stopped listening a while ago.
Dolly Llama
@Belafon: Well, if that’s an accurate summation, I’m betting on the business group every time. The GTNOOTWH group ain’t got no money.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: Not sure. Texas was willing to pull the plug after birth: Florida (read: JEB!) wanted Terri on life support indefinitely in the hope that one day she’d open her eyes and ask what day it was (despite all medical indicators and opinions insisting that she’d gone to a better place ten years prior).
Frankensteinbeck
@Dolly Llama:
Quite the contrary. The richest and most freespending Republicans of all – the Kochs – are in the GTNOOTWH branch. Never assume rich people are smarter or more logical than poor people. Geez, I would think the way companies are run these days would make that viscerally clear.
Still, Roberts is super business-friendly. I’m guessing that making the medical industry happy is a powerful argument to him.
The Pale Scot
@Bobby B.:
What A Classic..
J R in WV
Richard,
Thanks for the excellant summary of the shoddiness of the whole case. I’ve thought for some time now that several of the Reicht wing justices should have been impeached for their obvious failures.
Mr Thomas failed to recuse himself from a case in which his wife’s business was directly involved, and stood to make a lot of money depending upon his vote.
We all know about Tony’s habit of making his decision even before the case was argued, and perhaps before the case was even filed. Voting in line with your religious beliefs without regard to the law is probably a violation of the constitution, before you even get to the Bill of Rights. It is certainly unethical, and failing to recuse yourself from a case where your mind was made up before the case was filed is just wrong.
If the United States fails in the near future, I will be blaming the Reicht Wing Five on the highest bench in the land. And isn’t that a scary thought? That the nation will fail internally, because nothing looks able to bring us down from the exterior.
So of course our enemies work inside the nation, even if they’re really external, like the Curia of the Catholic Church, like Rudolph of the Faux News, like the vastly wealthy royal families of Europe… etc. There’s a clear path there to me.
Shalimar
@Davis X. Machina:
There are lots of different words for standing at the doors of the county health center blocking entrance by a patient with a bleeding ulcer while thinking that you are standing at Armageddon doing battle for the Lord. None of those words are complimentary, and most revolve around untreated mental illness.
Dolly Llama
@Frankensteinbeck: I know the Kochs are rich and all, but the insurance companies are not paupers.
Woodrowfan
being surprised that the rightwing is both evil and dishonest is like being surprised that water is wet.
KG
from one of the linked posts:
Standing and mootness aside (the first link makes it pretty clear that standing is less than good for any of these plaintiffs), I’m having a hard time understanding their alleged damages/injury. I mean, other than “I don’t want to buy insurance (even though I’m covered by the VA and/or Medicare)” I just don’t get it.
Belafon
@Dolly Llama: Yes, but your original statement implied that there was no money on the “doing the Lord’s work” side. There is plenty, and it’s not just the Koch’s. The business wing isn’t fighting against immigration either – having undocumented workers keeps salaries down – but they didn’t get the ruling from the Texas judge halting the orders that nearly every legal scholar said was legal.
richard mayhew
@Dolly Llama: A delay of a year or two is a two fold bet for ACA supporters:
1) Entrenching of the ACA and the subsidy structure even more so next time around the major money players in the Republican Party (Chamber of Commerce, NFIB, hospitals etc) can continue to beat it into the heads of the Teabaggers that they don’t fuck with the money.
2) 2016 election and actuarial tables — Another year or two means the odds of a conservative Supreme Court death increases, and if 2016 is a Dem year, a clear 5-4 liberal/not batshit insane majority protects ACA as well. Breyer or RBG dying between now and 1.20.17 won’t matter as a 4-4 court is a tie that goes to the current Appeals court ruling, and a 5-3 decision against is no worse than a 5-4 decision against.
Winnie
@richard mayhew:
Precisely Richard. If I were the Justice Department, now that I knew about the standing issue I’d be hammering at it, and for that matter Roberts, might want an easy out himself now that this whole thing is becoming increasingly farcical and more importantly now that the money forces are breathing down his neck.
Lee
I had a thought while I was working out.
Could this be the Republican form of kabuki? They know they have to give something to the forming-at-the-mouth crazies so they set up this lawsuit. They build into the lawsuit an obvious flaw since they know if they win, they are fucked.
Winnie
@Lee: @Lee:
It’s not. As the upcoming DHS funding debacle shows it really is a case of the crazies driving the car.
rikyrah
OF COURSE, this entire case is a scam
jl
Thanks for posts on new development in GOP outreach.
And their offer on legislative front is ‘nothing’. Will be interesting (and disgusting) to see how supposed moderates like Jeb! can maintain some kind of highwire act on immigration over the next 21 months.
That is a long time to BS.
MomSense
I insure myself and my kids thanks to the subsidies and I live in a state that doesn’t have an exchange.
I really don’t want to go back to being uninsured. We don’t utilize a lot of services but it is peace of mind. I am writing this sitting in a ski lodge while my kids zoom down a mountain on snowboards. Things happen. Insurance is necessary.
Gypsy Howell
While I would certainly like to see all of these plaintiffs’ standing go up in flames, I don’t believe that just because two are Vietnam veterans, they are automatically eligible for VA medical care. The VA has a hugely complicated eligibility rating schedule, and generally, ( at least from my understanding dealing with the VA) a Vietnam vet only gets medical coverage if he has a disability rating of 50% or more. And trust me, that is a big hurdle to clear. Can anyone else clarify?
I keep reading this about these two particular plaintiffs and I just don’t think it’s as simple as “they’re vietnam vets so therefore they’re eligible for VA medical coverage.”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gypsy Howell:
According to the VA website, Vietnam veterans are covered if they actually served in Vietnam, which I guess means that veterans of that era who served in, say, Germany would not automatically be eligible:
http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/apply/veterans.asp
Are you maybe thinking of pension benefits? Because IIRC those are calculated differently than medical benefits.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gypsy Howell:
Also, I think this may be a relatively recent change — I think commenter Ruckus was surprised to find out that he is now eligible when he wasn’t under previous rules.
Ruckus
@Gypsy Howell:
A Vietnam era vet gets covered depending on income if they have no other qualifying events, like POW, serving in the combat zone and a few others.
There are 8 groups, someone who served during the Vietnam debacle and has income under a set amount based upon where they live and how many dependents would be in group 7 with no qualifying events. Over that limit they would be in group 8 and have to make copays or have too much income and not be covered. Generally I’ll speculate that someone who qualifies for subsidies probably would be VA eligible, at least to some degree. The qualifying amounts aren’t the same numbers but they seem to be close.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Didn’t see your comment before I answered above.
I am covered by being a Vietnam era vet, I did not serve in a combat zone, or to use the vernacular, I never served in country.
My current qualifying group is #7 due to income. If my level was much more I’d fall into #8, if much less I be covered for more things, like dental or vision. I get everything else, primary care, necessary operations, hospital stays, etc. I didn’t qualify prior to about 9 yrs ago, income was too high. So the great recession did something for me. As well as to me and several million of my closest friends.