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	<title>SwamplandCategory: Supreme Court &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: Supreme Court &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Supreme Court Says States Can Block Out of State Use of FOIA</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/supreme-court-says-states-can-block-out-of-state-use-of-foia/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/supreme-court-says-states-can-block-out-of-state-use-of-foia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:57:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Associated Press</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Domestic Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94351</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that it&#8217;s legal for a state to limit use of its Freedom of Information Act to its own residents. The court unanimously upheld a federal appeals court decision validating Virginia&#8217;s limitation of its FOIA law to state citizens and some media outlets. In the case before the court, Rhode Island resident Mark J. McBurney and California resident Roger W. Hurlbert were suing Virginia for blocking them from getting public documents in Virginia that in-state citizens could have easily obtained. Virginia&#8217;s FOIA law limits access to state citizens and some media outlets. (MORE:  Iraq: How the CIA Says It Blew It on Saddam’s WMD) McBurney and Hurlbert, along with data and media companies, challenged the state FOIA law under the Constitution&#8217;s Privileges and Immunities Clause — which prohibits states from discriminating against out-of-staters in favor of its own citizens — and the Commerce Clause, which prohibits discrimination against interstate commerce. Hurlbert owns Sage Information Services, which obtains public real estate assessments for private clients. McBurney, a former Virginia resident, wanted to get documents from a Virginia child welfare agency involving a child support petition from his divorce from his wife. The two men say it is unconstitutional to not allow everyone access to the protections of a state&#8217;s FOIA law, especially considering the growing commerce potential of public records. Especially affected are data miners, who are disadvantaged by their inability to get information directly from Virginia on their own. &#8220;We hold, however, that petitioners&#8217; constitutional rights were not violated,&#8221; Justice Samuel Alito said for the court. &#8220;By means other than the state FOIA, Virginia made available to petitioners most of the information they sought, and the Commonwealth&#8217;s refusal to furnish the additional information did not abridge any constitutionally protected privilege or immunity. Nor did Virginia violate the dormant Commerce Clause.&#8221; The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond had thrown the two men&#8217;s case out before its appeal to the Supreme Court, but the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia struck down<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94351&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/supremecourt1.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">supremecourt</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>John Roberts, Conservative Outcast, and the Supreme Court&#8217;s Unprecedented Leak</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/john-roberts-conservative-outcast-and-the-supreme-courts-unprecedented-leak/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/john-roberts-conservative-outcast-and-the-supreme-courts-unprecedented-leak/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:44:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Sorensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john roberts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So much for weeks of chatter about how the Supreme Court is the last hermetic institution in Washington. CBS News has its hands on a once-in-a-lifetime scoop: someone with intimate knowledge of the court&#8217;s health care deliberations has provided an account of the decision of Chief Justice John Roberts to reverse course in May and the intense but ultimately ineffective campaign by conservative Justices to change his mind. Supreme Court leaks — especially one originating so close to the bench and coming just a few days after a ruling of such gravity — are virtually unheard of, even if all the circumstances the story describes are not. Though conservatives seem to be taking Roberts&#8217; flip as evidence of the Chief Justice&#8217;s squishiness — and are generally working themselves into a lather over the Bush appointee&#8217;s betrayal — switching positions late in the game is not a new phenomenon on the court. Justice Anthony Kennedy famously swapped sides in 1992&#8242;s Planned Parenthood v. Casey to uphold abortion rights, and toggles between positions more readily than most. Massimo Calabresi and David Von Drehle relayed a relevant anecdote in their recent profile of the Justice: In one famous incident, Scalia went for a walk with Kennedy before the Casey abortion case was decided and came away from their heart-to-heart discussion confident that they would vote together. The next day, Kennedy went the other way. This time, according to CBS News, it was Kennedy who did the lobbying. The story describes him as &#8220;relentless&#8221; until the very end, and &#8220;the most forceful and engaged of all the conservatives in trying to persuade Roberts.&#8221; That quote is telling. I claim no inside knowledge whatsoever of the court or this story, but all leaks happen for the same reason. In a recent piece about why national-security officials give reporters classified information, Steven Aftergood wrote, &#8220;They do so not to subvert policy but to explain it, to defend it and to execute it.&#8221; In this case, it looks as if conservative members of the court felt the need<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73452&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/john-roberts-conservative-outcast-and-the-supreme-courts-unprecedented-leak/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ap080212156865.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Justice John Roberts</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/7666b70a5b0305bd59953f5bca02cce5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Adam Sorensen</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>How the Supreme Court&#8217;s Medicaid Ruling Endangers Universal Coverage</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/how-the-supreme-courts-medicaid-ruling-could-hinder-unviseral-coverage/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/how-the-supreme-courts-medicaid-ruling-could-hinder-unviseral-coverage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:45:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73420</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Of all the ways President Obama&#8217;s health care law is poised to alter the U.S. medical system, the extension of new health insurance coverage to some 32 million people has been billed as its most important. A lack of coverage forces this population to flock to emergency rooms, driving up medical costs for everyone. Studies indicate that thousands die every year purely because they don’t have insurance. (A 2009 Harvard paper put the number of unnecessary deaths annually at 45,000.) Pulling these uninsured people into the health insurance pool, Democrats said, would save lives and money, and bring justice and organization to a system that’s rife with inequality and waste. (MORE: Why the Supreme Court Left Us Hanging on Healthcare) But thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week, which upheld the law’s basic architecture and the controversial individual mandate, fixing the problem of the uninsured could be a lot more difficult that Democrats were hoping. In a move that surprised court watchers and progressive advocates, the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, ruled that states don&#8217;t have to participate in a huge expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, called for in the ACA. (The ACA was written so that states that decided not to expand their Medicaid programs would lose their existing Medicaid funding, but the court said funding already in place should not be affected by states’ decisions on the ACA changes.) This expansion, which would allow everyone earning less than 133% of the federal poverty level to become eligible for the program, had been projected to extend health insurance to some 16 million Americans, about half of the total number expected to get new coverage under the ACA. (The federal poverty level this year is $11,170.) The High Court ruling last week left this expansion vulnerable, and along with it the law’s promise to bring the national insured rate to over 90%. The existing Medicaid program covers about 48 millions Americans, or 16% of the population, according<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73420&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/02/how-the-supreme-courts-medicaid-ruling-could-hinder-unviseral-coverage/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/healthcare_act_0702.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Affordable Healthcare Act</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d40234a6843419b1a17b2c08b6848561?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Roberts Rules: What the Health Care Decision Means for the Country</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/roberts-rules-what-the-health-care-decision-means-for-the-country/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/roberts-rules-what-the-health-care-decision-means-for-the-country/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2012 23:10:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>David Von Drehle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aca]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scotus]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73403</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You don&#8217;t have to love classical music to be amazed that Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony while deaf or be a fan of the old New York Giants to marvel at Willie Mays’ catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. For legal buffs, the virtuoso performance of Chief Justice John Roberts in deciding the biggest case of his career was just that sort of jaw dropper, no matter how they might feel about Obamacare. Not since King Solomon offered to split the baby has a judge engineered a slicker solution to a bitterly divisive dispute. With his fellow Supreme Court Justices split 4-4 between two extreme outcomes — blessing the sprawling health care law or killing it — Roberts maneuvered half the court into signing half his ruling and the other half into endorsing the rest. He gave the liberals their long-cherished dream of government-led reform while giving his fellow conservatives new doctrine to limit congressional power, which they have been seeking since the New Deal. With the court’s approval ratings at record lows and supporters of President Obama grimly predicting a legal travesty — or even a judicial coup — Roberts somehow cloaked a win for right-leaning legal theory in the glittering garb of a triumph for the left. And the Democratic swords that were being sharpened for an election-year war against the court were hammered into trumpets with which to herald the statesmanship of the Republican Chief Justice. “Whatever the politics, today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country,” the President declared after the ruling. Sharp-eyed conservative commentators — George Will and Charles Krauthammer, for example — read the fine print and agreed, though for very different reasons. Of course, some on the right refused to see a silver lining in this defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. “The particular tragedy is that four Justices would have overturned &#8230; all of Obamacare as unconstitutional,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board lamented. “Only John Roberts prevented it.” The fact that Roberts had to squirm<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73403&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/roberts-rules-what-the-health-care-decision-means-for-the-country/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Care</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/health-care/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/roberts.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chief Justice John Roberts</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">tepous</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">roberts</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>And Now, How to Improve Obamacare</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/and-now-how-to-improve-obamacare/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/and-now-how-to-improve-obamacare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2012 17:25:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john roberts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medicaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[president]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73356</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It was an elegant bit of business. Chief Justice John Roberts managed to sustain the Affordable Care Act while eviscerating the political flummery on both sides of the question. In the process, he moved the national health care conversation a quantum leap toward candor—and pointed the way toward a constructive future debate. The act was, of course, constitutional. It had to be, or else Medicare wasn&#8217;t. You can&#8217;t allow government to tax people to pay for medical care for citizens over the age of 65 and not allow government to do the same for those under 65. At the same time, and despite the best efforts of the Obama Administration to camouflage the reality of the situation, the act demanded that people pay money to be part of the system. You can call that a mandate, a fee, a penalty or an aardvark. You can also call it a tax, if it&#8217;s something you have to pay. Roberts chose to call it a tax because it was the clearest path—a superhighway, in fact—to constitutionality. This was a huge victory for the President, but it should be a chastening one. Barack Obama and his handlers have shown a distressing tendency to not speak plainly to the American people on this crucial issue. Political courage requires clarity. The Obama Administration chose the tortured route of arguing the legality of the individual mandate via the interstate commerce clause for one simple reason: it did not want to take the political risk of allowing opponents to call it a tax increase. That was stupid. The Republicans were calling it a tax increase anyway. (MORE: The Real Message Behind the High Court&#8217;s Health Care Decision Is the Decision Itself ) There is still an odor of obfuscation around Obamacare. But there is a chance for the President to clear the air a bit, in the same way that Roberts did. He can find ways to make it more palatable to conservatives. He can move it closer to the vision of the original Heritage Foundation individual-mandate plan. If<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73356&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Care</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/health-care/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/barackobama3.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">barackobama</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/82d9b09d6bf4a8d7cc755c73ad7a3ae5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Stop Overthinking This. The Real Significance of the Court&#8217;s Decision Is the Decision.</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/stop-overthinking-this-the-real-significance-of-the-courts-decision-is-the-decision/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/29/stop-overthinking-this-the-real-significance-of-the-courts-decision-is-the-decision/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:30:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Grunwald</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73343</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now is the time for the Smart Takes, for pundits to earn their pay, for analysts to analyze the larger significance of the Court’s decision beyond the obvious Obamacare Survives headlines. Here’s my dumb take: Stop overthinking this. The larger significance is: Obamacare Survives. That is a big Biden-word deal for everyone who interacts with the health care system, which is to say, everyone. The speculation about the future of the Roberts Court, the Commerce Clause, and other judicial precedents implied by the opinions are all just that—speculation. That future will be decided by two factors that cannot be determined by studying Thursday&#8217;s footnotes. At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, those two factors are: the winner of the 2012 presidential election, and the health of our nine deciders in robes. If you want to guess what will happen the next time the Court hears a challenge to a social program, it is somewhat helpful to know that five justices see limits to the Commerce Clause. But it would be more enlightening to know whether those five justices are careful about crossing the street when buses are coming, and whether President Obama or President Romney will get to replace them if they aren’t. That story about Steven Breyer getting mugged a couple months ago really freaked me out; Supreme Court Justices should have almost presidential-level security, because 5-4 votes have been guiding the direction of our nation. Part of what I’m saying here is that judicial precedent seems overrated in the modern era. The justices all have theories of the law and outlooks on the world, none of which they mention in their confirmation hearings, and then they apply those theories and worldviews towards the cases in front of them. Precedent matters much less than getting to five. What was the precedent for Bush v. Gore? Justice Scalia has used the Commerce Clause to justify all kinds of laws he liked; now he sees that restricting it is a useful way to strike down laws he doesn&#8217;t like. The<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73343&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/scotus_1.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">scotus_1</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">michaelgrunwald</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Republicans Turn Health Reform Loss into a Rallying Cry</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/republicans-turn-health-reform-loss-into-a-rallying-cry/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/republicans-turn-health-reform-loss-into-a-rallying-cry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:51:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[healthcare reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73261</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since its passage (and even before), Republicans have cast President Obama’s health-care reform law as an unconstitutional power grab that trampled Americans’ liberty by requiring them to purchase insurance or pay a penalty. That argument was shredded Thursday by one of their own. Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative icon, authored the majority opinion in the Supreme Court&#8217;s 5-4 decision that upheld the law’s so-called individual mandate by framing it as a tax. In wake of the decision, Republicans swiftly pivoted to a new argument: that the duty to repeal the law now falls to Congress, making it doubly important that the party gain control of both houses and win the presidency in November. They spun a loss into a rallying cry. You work with what you have. Less than two hours after the Roberts Court handed down its opinion, Mitt Romney stood on the rooftop of an office building a few blocks from the court’s white marble temple, the capitol dome gleaming behind him, and vowed once again to repeal President Obama’s signature piece of legislation. “Our mission is clear: If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we’re going to have to replace President Obama,” he said. (MORE: The Supreme Court’s Health Care Ruling: The Winners and Losers) For Romney, the Court’s ruling is embedded with political benefits. It allows him to wield the health-care overhaul as a political cudgel. The law&#8217;s constitutionality, Romney said, does not made it any less a pernicious law, and he proceeded to rattle off a litany of objections, casting Obamacare as the morally corrupt centerpiece of the tax-and-spend “liberal agenda.” By lunchtime, he had raised more than $1 million off the ruling, according to a campaign spokeswoman. To fulfill his pledge of repeal, however, Romney needs Republicans to hold their majority in the House and retake the Senate. As they have since the start of the 112th Congress, Republicans vowed Thursday to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. “Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety,” House Speaker John Boehner said.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73261&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mitt-romney-obamacare.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mitt Romney Obamacare</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Big Health Care Win: An Incredible Stroke of Luck</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/obamas-big-health-care-win-an-incredible-stroke-of-luck/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/obamas-big-health-care-win-an-incredible-stroke-of-luck/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:12:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Grunwald</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73246</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During the Tea Party summer of 2009, when suburban revolutionaries with funny hats and nasty signs began screaming about Obamacare and tyranny, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel urged the President to settle for a less comprehensive health plan. But Obama said no, he felt lucky. At the end of the summer, after Obama’s approval ratings had sagged and Obamacare’s approval ratings had plunged, Emanuel asked during an Oval Office meeting whether he still felt lucky. “My name is Barack Hussein Obama and I’m sitting here,” said Obama, in an anecdote first reported by Jonathan Alter in his book The Promise. “So yeah, I’m feeling pretty lucky.” Today, Obama must be feeling even luckier. Obamacare has survived, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative George W. Bush appointee who surprised legal pundits by upholding the plan’s insurance requirement as a tax, even though Obama always insisted it wasn’t a tax. The other four conservative Justices wanted to strike down the entire law, but because one Republican in a robe defied expectations, Obama has secured an achievement that Democrats have dreamed of since FDR and Truman, extending health insurance to the uninsured, while laying the groundwork for systemic reforms. As Vice President Joe Biden said, it’s a big you-know-what deal. (MORE: The Supreme Court’s Health Care Ruling: The Winners and Losers) And as the Duke of Wellington once said, it was a near run thing. It’s worth recalling just how narrow a needle Obama had to thread to get his health plan to this point. During the 2008 campaign, Obama had criticized the individual mandate, arguing that the real problem with health care was that it was too expensive, and that the path to universal coverage was to make it cheaper. But when he decided to push for health reform in the spring of 2009, he discovered that Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, a centrist Democrat who took the lead on reform, thought a mandate was the only path to a filibuster-proof majority. So the White House let Baucus pursue a bipartisan<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73246&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/obamas-big-health-care-win-an-incredible-stroke-of-luck/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/scotus.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">scotus</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/ddcaf430de0f1a59f27cc4ad614221d9?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">michaelgrunwald</media:title>
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		<title>Supreme Court Hands Barack Obama a Political Win</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/supreme-court-hands-barack-obama-a-political-win/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/supreme-court-hands-barack-obama-a-political-win/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:24:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Scherer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73198</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama narrowly escaped a damaging rejection by the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, when the Justices ruled that the health care reforms commonly known as “Obamacare” passed constitutional muster. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts ruled that the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014 could be upheld under the constitutional right of the federal government to levy taxes. &#8220;Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax,&#8221; the majority opinion read. &#8220;This is sufficient to sustain it.&#8221; (MORE: Obama’s Big Health Care Win: An Incredible Stroke of Luck) The political parties responded immediately to the ruling. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted, &#8220;Just elect Romney. We need #fullrepeal.&#8221; The Democratic National Committee released a web video that shows Romney praising the idea of an individual mandate, mostly in the context of a state mandate, under a misleading banner that suggests Romney was responding to the current ruling. It can be seen here. A recent RAND study concluded that 91% of the country’s non-elderly adults would receive insurance coverage under the law as it was written, compared to 81% without any policy change. If the so-called “individual mandate” instructing all Americans to buy insurance was voided but the rest of the law had remained in place, RAND, concluded that 87% of the non-elderly population would have insurance. By stripping out the mandate, 12 million Americans would have likely opted not to buy insurance, or would not have been able to afford insurance. Congress and the White House spent more than a year obsessing over the details of health care reform, but for most of that time the constitutionality of the bill, and the insurance requirement in contained, was not an issue. “I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, one of the top Republican negotiators, in June of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73198&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/barackobama2.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">barackobama</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">michaelscherer</media:title>
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		<title>Supreme Court Upholds Health Reform Law in Landmark Decision</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/supreme-court-upholds-obamacare-in-landmark-decision/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/supreme-court-upholds-obamacare-in-landmark-decision/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:38:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73193</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld President Obama&#8217;s health reform law, affirming the centerpiece of the sweeping 2010 overhaul of the nation&#8217;s medical industries in a landmark 5-4 vote. The deciding opinion, written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the requirement that almost all Americans buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty, does not violate the Constitution. The Court limited a massive expansion of Medicaid, the federal program that provides health care to the poor, but did not strike it down. That outcome validates the legacy achievement of Obama&#8217;s tenure, and puts the U.S. closer to near-universal health coverage than at any time in its history. Here are the likely winners and losers in the ruling&#8217;s aftermath. (Read the decision here.) Winners The Obama Administration. Beyond the obvious matter of being able to move forward with a major set of policies the Democratic party has wanted for decades, the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval on the Affordable Care Act legitimizes Obama’s most visible and far-reaching domestic achievement. It also undercuts Republicans’ charge that the Obama Administration has consistently overreached its authority. The Supreme Court’s decision says the government’s insurance requirement is a tax with precedent. In addition, a vote from right-leaning Chief Justice John Roberts further seals the argument that the law, while politically explosive, is nonetheless constitutional. The sick and the uninsured. The Affordable Care Act will extend health insurance to some 30 million Americans who currently lack coverage. It will also guarantee the availability of insurance for those with pre-existing conditions and ensure those people don’t pay more than healthy people. Anyone earning up to 133% of the federal poverty level will get free coverage through Medicaid and those earning 133% to 400% (but without access to employer or government insurance) will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them buy policies. Congressional Democrats. While health care reform will remain a potent political issue – just because it’s constitutional doesn’t mean everyone has to like it – Democratic Senators and House members who voted for the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73193&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/sl_healthcare_0628_001.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Supporters of US President Barack Obama&#039;</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>John Roberts&#8217; Moment: The Chief Justice Weighs Image and Principle in Obamacare Decision</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/john-roberts-moment-the-chief-justice-weighs-image-and-principle-in-obamacare-decision/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/28/john-roberts-moment-the-chief-justice-weighs-image-and-principle-in-obamacare-decision/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:45:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>David Von Drehle</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john roberts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obamacare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73177</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Chief Justice John Roberts arrived on the Supreme Court in 2005 full of promises to dial down the partisan rhetoric and foster the Court’s reputation as a fair-minded forum, not a food fight. But if the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the conservative Antonin Scalia can be believed, this momentous term will end bitterly Thursday with a divided opinion on the fate of Obamacare. The food will be flying. Ginsburg and Scalia have both hinted recently that the Court was unable to find a middle ground on the fate of President Obama’s signature legislation. Certainly the legal commentators watching the Court haven&#8217;t seen eye to eye. On the left, experts say there is no doubt that the massive law is constitutional—including the requirement that uninsured Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine. On the right, the individual mandate is seen as an obvious intrusion on liberty—the federal government can’t force Americans to buy something they don’t want. (MORE: Why the Supreme Court Left Us Hanging on Health Care) Readers of the secretive court’s tea leaves predict that Roberts himself is writing the deciding opinion—potentially the most far-reaching court action in decades, with the potential to upend two years of work to reform an industry that covers one-sixth of the U.S. economy. With a 2,700-page law at issue, and multiple challenges to be decided, the menu of possible outcomes is mind-boggling. But if Roberts is indeed the author, the decision will shed light on which values he holds most highly: the Court&#8217;s image of fair-mindedness, or the purity of his conservative principles. Challengers to the law made a strong conservative case—much stronger than Obamacare defenders had expected—that the individual mandate crosses the line into excessive government power. How can Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce reach into the pockets of citizens who aren’t part of the commerce? If Congress can make people buy private insurance, what else can they make us buy? It’s possible that Roberts has joined the four other conservative Justices on the court to strike down<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73177&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/roberts.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Chief Justice John Roberts</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/44310a1af940f994952d1e4db73096cd?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>Supreme Court Blocks Key Provisions of Arizona Law, Affirming Broad Federal Power over Immigration</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/25/supreme-court-blocks-key-provisions-of-arizona-law-affirming-broad-federal-power-over-immigration/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/25/supreme-court-blocks-key-provisions-of-arizona-law-affirming-broad-federal-power-over-immigration/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:59:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Sorensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73009</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Forget racial profiling or Arizona Governor Jan Brewer&#8217;s feud with President Obama. In striking down key provisions of SB 1070, the controversial Arizona law aimed at illegal immigration, the Supreme Court was refereeing a dispute about federalism. With Elena Kagan recusing herself because she worked on the case as solicitor general, the Supreme Court voted 5-3, mostly siding with the Obama Administration to affirm its broad powers and unambiguously ruling that Arizona can&#8217;t make immigration laws that supersede existing federal statutes. In a majority opinion authored by swing vote Anthony Kennedy, who was joined by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and liberals Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Ginsburg, the court held that federal law pre-empted three of the four main tenets of SB 1070. Arizona cannot make living there without documentation a state crime with its own penalties, even though it&#8217;s already a violation of federal statute, Kennedy wrote. &#8220;Section 3 intrudes on the field of alien registration, a field in which Congress has left no room for states to regulate.&#8221; Similarly, the court found that the state&#8217;s penalties against undocumented workers violate the federal government&#8217;s exclusive control over that issue, and that Arizona law enforcement cannot arrest people whom they reasonably suspect to have committed a deportable offense without a warrant. &#8220;As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the U.S.,&#8221; Kennedy wrote. &#8220;The federal scheme instructs when it is appropriate to arrest an alien during the removal process.&#8221; In other words: federal discretion is paramount. The law, Kennedy made clear, would&#8217;ve allowed Arizona to punish undocumented immigrants the federal government does not want to see penalized. That is &#8220;not the system Congress created,&#8221; according to the court. The lone untouched pillar of the law, however, is its most controversial and well known. Dubbed the &#8220;papers, please&#8221; clause, this part of SB 1070 requires state law-enforcement officers to check immigration status during routine detentions and allows them to stop people they suspect to be undocumented. At its core, this part<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73009&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/600_supremecourt.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/600_supremecourt.jpg?w=200" />
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			<media:title type="html">600_supremecourt</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/7666b70a5b0305bd59953f5bca02cce5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Adam Sorensen</media:title>
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		<title>SCOTUS Rebuffs Challenge to Citizens United</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/25/scotus-rebuffs-challenge-to-citizens-united/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/25/scotus-rebuffs-challenge-to-citizens-united/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:47:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[citizens united]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Montana campaign finance law]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=72992</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So it will be 72 long hours until the Supreme Court renders its verdict on the future of all-mankind, a.k.a. the health care reform law. In the meantime, it has issued a short but important ruling on a case they decided not to hear. In a 5-4 decision this morning, the Court struck down a Montana law that imposed strict limits on campaign donations, declining to consider a challenge to its Citizens United ruling. For opponents of that controversial opinion, today&#8217;s decision might seem like a stinging rebuke. But it is also likely a blessing in disguise.  First, the nuts and bolts: In what&#8217;s known as a &#8220;summary reversal,&#8221; the Court&#8217;s conservative wing ruled that a century-old Montana state law barring corporate campaign donations violated the spirit of the 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that corporate spending was protected speech under the First Amendment. A summary reversal means the decision was issued without granting oral arguments for the case, known as American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock. (Steve Bullock is Montana&#8217;s attorney general, as well as the state&#8217;s Democratic nominee for governor; American Tradition Partnership is the Virginia-based anti-environmental advocacy group that sued Montana for bucking its right to spend freely in the state&#8217;s elections.) The reversal overturns a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court, which refused to strike down the state&#8217;s ban on corporations spending in elections. A district court had previously ruled the statute should be struck. The ruling was something of a surprise &#8212; legal analysts had widely predicted the Court would grant certiorari. Montana, joined by 22 states and the District of Columbia, anchored its case in the principles of federalism, arguing that they, not the federal government, should have the right to make their own election laws. But according to precedent, federal law supersedes state law. In the unsigned statement for the majority, the Court held that &#8220;there can be no serious doubt&#8221; that Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. In a dissent, Justice Breyer argued the precedent established by Citizens United &#8220;should not bar&#8221; Montana&#8217;s existing anti-corruption stature, which had<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=72992&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
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		<title>The Court, The New York Times and Credibility</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/08/the-court-the-new-york-times-and-credibility/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/08/the-court-the-new-york-times-and-credibility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jun 2012 17:11:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=72082</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times had an interesting story on Friday about the declining popularity of the Supreme Court. It&#8217;s worth reading the entire thing, because there are a variety of interesting cross-tabs sprinkled throughout, like public opinion about potential court action on Obamacare and immigration. But it&#8217;s also worth taking a closer look at a couple of things in and about the story. The story makes clear right from the start that the source of the public&#8217;s declining respect for the court is unknown. After leading with the primary finding of the poll in paragraph one, and establishing a historical trend in paragraph two, graph three reads: The decline in the court’s standing may stem in part from Americans’ growing distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular. But it also could reflect a sense that the court is more political, after the ideologically divided 5-to-4 decisions in Bush v. Gore, which determined the 2000 presidential election, and Citizens United, the 2010 decision allowing unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. In other words, we don&#8217;t know what the source of the deteriorating popularity of the court is. So why are we speculating about the possible sources in paragraph three of a story prominently placed on the front page above the fold? To borrow a device: the speculation and prominent placement could stem in part from Times editors&#8217; growing interest in Americans&#8217; distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular. But it also could reflect a sense among Times editors that the court is more political, after the ideologically divided 5-to-4 decisions in Bush v. Gore, which determined the 2000 presidential election, and Citizens United, the 2010 decision allowing unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. If it sounds as if I&#8217;m imputing motives without sufficient factual substantiation, I agree. But while I&#8217;m at it, why not go a little further. For our reporting on this week&#8217;s cover on Justice Anthony Kennedy, I interviewed a lot of former clerks<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=72082&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>A Life in Photos: Justice Anthony Kennedy</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/a-life-in-photos-justice-anthony-kennedy/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/a-life-in-photos-justice-anthony-kennedy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:11:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME Staff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health care reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[justice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kennedy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=72018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From his boyhood in Sacremento to the bench in Washington, TIME traces the life of the Supreme Court&#8217;s pivotal swing vote.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=72018&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/sl_kennedy_0607_09.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Justice Kennedy</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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		<title>Trying to Read Anthony Kennedy&#8217;s Mind: Health Care and the Supreme Court Revisited</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/trying-to-read-anthony-kennedys-mind-health-care-and-the-supreme-court-revisited/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/trying-to-read-anthony-kennedys-mind-health-care-and-the-supreme-court-revisited/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:05:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=71944</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As Massimo Calabresi and David Von Drehle write in their cover story this week, Justice Anthony Kennedy is often the decider when it comes to Supreme Court cases of great import. He toggles between the conservative and liberal sides of the bench and predicting where he will land on a particular matter is impossible. This is true with one of the most consequential cases to ever come before the High Court&#8211;whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. The court is expected to issue its decision on the health care law later this month. Whether the justices uphold Obama&#8217;s health care law in full, strike down part of it or cancel it out entirely will have a huge impact on the 2012 presidential election, not to mention the health care of millions of Americans. When supporters and opponents of the law argued the case back in March, most watchers focused on Kennedy to see if they could decipher how he feels about the matter. A look back at what he said during the hearings provides more confusion than insight, especially when one considers that, as Calabresi and Von Drehle report, Kennedy sometimes makes his decisions at the last minute. Still, the temptation to try and decode Kennedy&#8217;s comments is too strong to resist. Below is a healthy sampling of his comments and questions on the health care case. (MORE: Why Obamacare May Stand: Reading Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s Swing Vote) The central question in the health care case is whether the individual mandate, the requirement that by 2014 all Americans have health insurance, is constitutional. Everyone agrees that the federal government has the constitutional power to regulate “commerce.” Obama Administration lawyers argue the health insurance market is commerce and therefore within bounds for regulation. Challengers say that the commerce the feds want to regulate doesn’t exist now and that the government is trying to regulate “inactivity,” i.e. a lack of insurance, which is an overreach. Kennedy cut straight to this matter, asking a question that seemed to take the challengers argument at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=71944&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">More...</media:title>
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		<title>What Will Justice Kennedy Do?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/what-will-kennedy-do/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/07/what-will-kennedy-do/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:35:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Courts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justice Anthony Kennedy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=71957</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For decades the country&#8217;s top lawyers have tried to come up with a unifying theory for Justice Anthony Kennedy&#8217;s jurisprudence in hopes of winning over the closely divided Supreme Court’s key swing vote. Sometimes siding with the liberals, other times with the conservatives, Kennedy has confounded them all. “There is no grand unified theory for Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence,” says Viet Dinh, the founding partner of Bancroft LLC, whose star, Paul Clement, argued the case against Obamacare in March. With a decision expected in that case the last week of June, all eyes are again turning to Kennedy and how he will rule. For this week’s cover story on Kennedy (available to subscribers here), TIME interviewed dozens of his clerks, colleagues and friends and then returned to Sacramento, where Kennedy spent an idyllic childhood, and to which he moved back after law school. There we found that Kennedy and his jurisprudence are best understood as the product of the uniquely middle American world of mid-century Sacramento. Says his friend the writer Joan Didion, who was a frequent visitor to the Kennedy home in the ‘40s and ‘50s when she was a close friend of Kennedy’s older sister Nancy: “I don’t think he’s ever wanted to leave Sacramento in any real way. He wants that world in Sacramento whether it exists anymore or not.” (MORE: Why Obamacare May Stand: Reading Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s Swing Vote) Kennedy moved into his childhood home in the Land Park neighborhood on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, but was sheltered from the war and the other uncertainties of the era thanks to a close family and the stability of his environment. His father was a lawyer and lobbyist. Kennedy himself became a lobbyist when he took over his father’s firm in the early 60s. Kennedy became a law professor at the McGeorge School of Law during that period, thanks to the charismatic Democratic power broker, Gordon Schaber. They became good friends, and Kennedy would later learn Schaber was gay. The piece also looks at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=71957&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/opener_2_crop1.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">opener_2_crop</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Supreme Court: Government Faces Skepticism in Arguing Against Arizona Immigration Law</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/25/supreme-court-government-faces-skepticism-in-arguing-against-arizona-immigration-law/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/04/25/supreme-court-government-faces-skepticism-in-arguing-against-arizona-immigration-law/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:39:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Sorensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=70005</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;You can see it&#8217;s not selling very well. Why don&#8217;t you try to come up with something else?&#8221; That candid quote of the day comes from Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, responding to solicitor general Donald Verrilli&#8217;s argument before the High Court on Wednesday that a provision of a controversial Arizona law requiring police officers to ask for immigration papers during routine stops interferes with federal enforcement. Sotomayor&#8217;s skepticism, echoed by both liberal and conservative justices alike during 80 minutes of oral arguments, was a strong indication that a block placed by lower courts on four provisions of the law known as S.B. 1070 is unlikely to stand in its entirety.  The Supreme Court&#8217;s consideration of Arizona&#8217;s immigration crackdown is the second case in a month to pit Verrilli against the talented Paul Clement, who argued against the constitutionality of President Obama&#8217;s health reform law on behalf of 26 states in March; it&#8217;s also the second case in a month to weigh legislation that&#8217;s playing a charged role in national politics. S.B. 1070, passed in 2010 by Arizona&#8217;s Republican statehouse, has inspired similar laws in a handful of other states and drawn legal action from the Obama Administration. Accusations that the law promotes racial profiling has also put spark to tinder, though that charge is not under consideration in the Supreme Court. Instead, Wednesday&#8217;s hearings focused primarily on whether the law interferes with the primacy of federal immigration policy by doling out harsh punishments under state jurisdiction and compelling local law enforcement to report immigration violations to federal officials. The latter action, Verrilli argued, would disrupt federal discretion on when to enforce immigration law.  That was the argument that the justices&#8211;barring Elena Kagan, who recused herself from the case because she worked on the case as solicitor general, and Clarence Thomas, who (as usual) did not speak&#8211;seemed to have trouble swallowing. Clement argued that the law merely applies federal standards and takes necessary, additional action in the face of unique criminal and economic disruptions caused by illegal immigration in Arizona. Arguments over other blocked provisions&#8211;empowering police to arrest<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=70005&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/7666b70a5b0305bd59953f5bca02cce5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Adam Sorensen</media:title>
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		<title>Why Obamacare May Stand: Reading Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court&#8217;s Swing Vote</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/30/why-obamacare-may-stand-reading-justice-kennedy-the-supreme-courts-swing-vote/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/30/why-obamacare-may-stand-reading-justice-kennedy-the-supreme-courts-swing-vote/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:31:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anthony kennedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scotus]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=68541</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After three days of oral arguments and intense speculation in the press, the Supreme Court is said to be holding an initial vote Friday, March 30, on the fate of President Obama&#8217;s landmark health reform law. While conventional wisdom has swung against the high court&#8217;s upholding the law, a close reading of Justice Anthony Kennedy&#8217;s questioning and conversations with his former clerks suggests that a week of breathless coverage has overstated the likelihood of that happening. It is true that Solicitor General Don Verrilli had a bad day on Tuesday. It is also true that the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court asked hard questions of the government and easier questions of the law’s opponents. But Verrilli’s performance and the tone of the conservatives&#8217; questions are vastly less important to whether Obamacare survives than many seem to think. (PHOTOS: Supreme Court Health Care Protests) The individual mandate and Obamacare will sink or swim on one simple judgment: whether uninsured Americans are in the health insurance market. Everyone agrees that Congress can force the uninsured to buy health insurance if they are in that market. Michael Carvin, arguing for the suing small-business group, said Tuesday, “Yes, when you&#8217;ve entered the marketplace, [Congress] can impose all sorts of restrictions on you.” And Paul Clement, arguing for the suing states, agreed that a patient who shows up at an emergency room can be forced to buy insurance on the spot before receiving care. But are those same uninsured people “in the marketplace” before they get sick? What about when they are young and healthy? On that question, Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts were more equivocal than you might think. “[Kennedy] sounded conflicted,” says his former Supreme Court clerk, George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. “I’m not sure which way he’ll come out.” The best guide for navigating the question of whether the uninsured are in the health insurance market remains the opinion (.pdf) of Jeffrey Sutton, the former clerk of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Sutton ruled in favor of the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=68541&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/sl_kennedy_0329.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">sl_kennedy_0329</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Health Care After the Court: If the Individual Mandate Falls, What Next?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/29/if-the-individual-mandate-falls-what-could-replace-it/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/29/if-the-individual-mandate-falls-what-could-replace-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:41:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Supreme Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obamacare]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual health insurance mandate, but leaves most or all of the rest of the Affordable Care Act intact, Congress will have some work to do. Without some way to push uninsured healthy Americans into the marketplace, insurance prices could creep upward until they become unaffordable for everyone. There’s no guarantee such a specter would motivate a divided Congress to work together to find a solution, of course. But if Congress was able to operate effectively, there are a number of ways the Affordable Care Act could be patched to function without an individual mandate. One is to change the tax code. The individual mandate as it now exists in health reform would be enforced by fining Americans who choose not to have health insurance. This would happen through their income tax returns. The same goal could be accomplished by levying a new health insurance tax on everyone and giving an equally sized credit to those who purchase coverage. (PHOTOS: Supreme Court Health Care Protests) Another alternative would be to create a rule that Americans can buy affordable new health insurance policies in the individual market only during strictly enforced open enrollment periods. During these times, consumers would be guaranteed to get policies and those policies would not be priced on risk&#8211;in other words, health status. Anyone who missed this window and decided to buy a policy only once he or she gets sick would face rates charged based purely on risk, which could mean paying astronomically high prices. In February 2011, the Government Accountability Office published a report offering a list of nine alternatives to the individual mandate: Modify open enrollment periods and impose late enrollment penalties. Expand employers’ roles in auto-enrolling and facilitating employees’ health insurance enrollment. Conduct a public education and outreach campaign. Provide broad access to personalized assistance for health coverage enrollment. Impose a tax to pay for uncompensated care. Allow greater variation in premium rates based on enrollee age. Condition the receipt of certain government services upon proof of health<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=68496&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Supreme Court</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/supreme-court/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/sl_health_0329_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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