Impeach the Supreme Court Justices If They Overturn Health-Care Law

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/03/impeach-the-supreme-court-justices-if-they-overturn-health-care-law.html


Impeach the Supreme Court Justices If They Overturn Health-Care Law
David R. Dow
Apr 3, 2012 5:32 PM EDT

The Roberts Court’s rulings appear to be a concerted effort to send us back to the Gilded Age. If they dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them.


You think the idea is laughable? Thomas Jefferson disagreed with you.

Jefferson believed Supreme Court justices who undermine the principles of the Constitution ought to be impeached, and that wasn’t just idle talk. During his presidency, Jefferson led the effort to oust Justice Salmon Chase, arguing that Chase was improperly seizing power. The Senate acquitted Chase in 1805, and no Justice has been impeached since, but as the Supreme Court threatens to nullify the health-care law, Jefferson’s idea is worth revisiting.

The problem with the current court is not merely that there is a good chance it will strike down a clearly constitutional law. The problem is that this decision would be the latest salvo in what seems to be a sustained effort on the part of the Roberts Court to return the country to the Gilded Age.

snip//

You don’t have to pull the analytical thread of that reasoning very hard to see that it boils down to an argument for allowing the poor to die. And if the Supreme Court strikes down the health-care law, that is exactly the ideology it will have to embrace. It will be saying that Congress cannot guarantee medical coverage for the poor and then implement a system to pay for it. In other words, the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.

The last time the court went down this path, saner heads prevailed. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s view was historically and constitutionally correct, and the court finally acknowledged this in a pivotal 1937 case, West Coast Hotel v. Parish. In West Coast Hotel, the court ruled that the Constitution safeguards not just individual liberty but community interests as well; and in matters of economics, it is the legislature’s job to strike the appropriate balance between those two. If the Roberts Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, it will be mimicking the discredited court of 1935.

We can argue about whether President Jefferson was right to try to impeach Justice Chase. But there’s no question that he was right to say that impeachment is an option for justices who undermine constitutional values. There are other options, as well. We might amend the Constitution to establish judicial term limits. Or we might increase the number of justices to dilute the influence of its current members (though FDR could tell you how that turned out). In the end, however, it is the duty of the people to protect the Constitution from the court. Social progress cannot be held hostage by five unelected men.


David R. Dow is the Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center and the Rorschach Visiting Professor of History at Rice. His most recent book is a memoir, The Autobiography of an Execution.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. every step of the way the republican party by hook or by crook is trying to turn the clock back.

We all should be concerned with what is going on no matter what party we belong to. This isn't right.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Except that if SCOTUS dumps ACA, Congress could just go with Single-Payer, no? nt

[JoePhilly]

6. The Dems won't touch Health Care for a few decades if ACA is overturned.

[99th_Monkey]

12. Wimps. arrgghh.. nt

[JoePhilly]

14. Yup.

Most of the current Dems feel like they got beat up in the first round of the NCR debate and so if it gets overturned, they will be terrified to touch it again.

I think the folk who think overturning this will FORCE single payer to happen are delusional.

Single payer is more aggressive. If a relative moderate move forward dies, why would they think something more aggressive would get implemented quickly.

I just don't see it.

The ACA starts to build the bridge. Blowing it up does not make the bridge magically appear.

[99th_Monkey]

15. Well, there is a certain "poetic justice" to it.

I don't want to sell this nation's voters short, prior to this upcoming election.

Hell, it's this kind of REALLY important shit that ELECTIONS are made for.

If Dems (that's US) mobilize MASSIVE turnout to take both houses of Congress,

and keep Obama as Prez. THEN it could well happen...

esp. if it is one of the major issues that galvanizes electorate in 2012.

Obama and Dems can just keep saying "Hey, this is what SCOTUS MADE
us do. We tried to "compromise" and SCOTUS sez it's "unconstitutional".
So get over it." j

[emulatorloo]

10. Republicans are not going to vote for single payer

Right now they are trying to destroy Medicare.

[99th_Monkey]

13. no duh.

What I'm imagining -- and maybe I should have elaborated -- is that an outraged public
will stand up in 2012 election and elect SOLID majorities in both houses ( and keep Obama
of course) ... which would be a game changer.

A great argument can be made that we now MUST do single payer, because SCOTUS
made us do it, and it will sidestep all the "mandate" bullshit.

[RC]

3. Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America:

We The People "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Section 8.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and PROVIDE FOR THE common defense and GENERAL WELFARE of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;..."

Twice in our Constitution it mentions "general welfare" What constitutes 'General Welfare'?
The old-age benefits provisions of the Social Security Act of 1935 is an example of providing for the 'general welfare'. Medicaid/Medicare are 2 more examples of providing for the 'general welfare'.
Government controlled, Single Payer, Universal health care for the people of the United States IS covered by the Constitution, because the relative health of our citizens does affect the general welfare of the Nation. 45,000 dead people a year are proof the profit driven, privately run systems we have in place now are not working to provide the necessary health care for our nation.
How can our present private health insurance system, with its many insurance companies (each with its own way of doing things), its own highly paid management, its own attention to the bottom line for its share holders, its own claims requirements, its own forms for submitting claims, etc., be more efficient than any government controlled single Payer system, with its single set of rules and forms?

[font size="5"][center]How can we be the Greatest nation on earth,
if we can't/won't even take care of our own citizens?[/center][/font]

[GopperStopper2680]

5. Since when has a little measely thing like the Constitution stood in the way of the GOP?

(Read: Sarcasm).

George W. Bush virtually became the nation's first dictator and created the abominable 'American Patriot Act' and the associated Gestappo organisation DHS to enforce it. These are both clearly aimed at ruining our Constitutanal rights to speak out against our elected officals. Evidently President Bush wanted to be King George. Did he mind that the Constitution said No to these things?

Not in the least. And that toxic legacy lives on.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. I totally agree with you, but it would take an act of Congress

specifically the House, and in order to impeach any rightwing activist justice presently on the Court (the majority), it would take regaining Democratic power in the House and maintaining power in the Senate AND if Reid is still Sen. Majority Leader and finally gets it through his thick skull that filibuster rules NEED reforming and does so when the next Congress reconvenes . . . then there's a slight possibility this scenario can happen.

Congress rarely, RARELY, does the right thing for the People. It took them one and a half years to pass a pretty flawed and SLOW health care reform bill, but it barely took them two weeks to approve hundreds of billions in bank bailouts without a single condition even though there was ample proof banks committed huge fraud.

[EFerrari]

7. Enslaving the American public to the health insurance industry is not social progress. nt

[babylonsister]

8. Tell that to the many people already benefiting from the ACA.

And just think; whatever the SCOTUS decides may very well have an effect on the election. Mitt getting elected would not be any kind of social progress either. We'd be going backwards.

[EFerrari]

9. To your first assertion, at what cost?

You want to put the health of this country in the hands of criminals, go for it.

But I doubt the Court wil overturn this atrocity. Their cronies have too much to lose. So Obama is safe.

[emulatorloo]

11. If Insurance Co's love it so, why are Republican Attourney Generals trying to overturn it?

Last edited Wed Apr 4, 2012, 07:34 PM - Edit history (1)

And the Kochs and their ilk are spending big dollars to misrepresent it?

They don't like Obamacare because

-- too much regulation of insurance industry, and not enough profits as they have to spend 85 percent of what they take in on healthcare

-- they know there is a very good chance as it becomes more popular with people it will evolve into single payer.

[area51]

16. Mandated, for-profit, unregulated, private insurance

has no way of evolving into single-payer.

Have you stopped to notice that the single-payer groups don't want to see GingrichCare enacted?

"Employer-based health insurance has always been a bad idea. Your life should not depend on who you work for." -- T. McKeon

[font face="times"]"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America[/font]

"Despite the present hyperbole by its supporters, this latest effort will end up as just another failed reform effort littering the landscape of the last century." --John Geyman, M.D., Hijacked! The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform

[Doctor_J]

17. Impeach them even if they don't

Thomas and Scalia are completely corrupt. Impeachment would be a slam dunk. Too bad Pelosi was too cowardly to do the right thing when she was speaker