Sonia Sotomayor Presses Attorney About Past Rulings In Case Challenging The Affordable Care Act

Forbes Breaking News

During the oral arguments for Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc., Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned an attorney about the past rulings made in the given case.

Transcript

00:00the issue was so open and shut. Why do you think the Fifth Circuit didn't reach it? I saw that this

00:05was a huge part of the briefing before the Fifth Circuit. It was. It seems to me that

00:12it wasn't merely an assumption, it was a conclusion. In their whole reasoning, the

00:19conclusion was... Well, if I can defend the Court of Appeals for a moment, Justice Sotomayor. They

00:25did not need to reach that question because they concluded, number one, the task force members are

00:29principal officers. So there's no need to decide whether Congress vested the appointment authority

00:35and the secretary. You only need to reach that question if you think they're inferior officers,

00:39because even inferior officers still need to be appointed by the President and the Senate,

00:43unless Congress has affirmatively opted out of the default rule. But if you think they're

00:46principal officers, you don't need to reach that question at all. The second reason I think the

00:49Court of Appeals refused a rule on it was because they rejected the government's proposed severance

00:54remedy. And the court will also need to address this point if it wants to sever Section 299B-4A.

01:00because the severance remedy proposed by the government is premised on the idea that the

01:04secretary has constitutional authority vested by Congress to appoint the task force. If the

01:09secretary doesn't have that power because Congress hasn't vested the power in the secretary,

01:13then the government's severance remedy does not work because the inferior officers would still have

01:17to be appointed by the President and the Senate, even if they're considered inferior officers.

Category

Transcript

Recommended