From his boyhood in Sacremento to the bench in Washington, TIME traces the life of the Supreme Court’s pivotal swing vote.
Supreme Court
Trying to Read Anthony Kennedy’s Mind: Health Care and the Supreme Court Revisited
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 …
What Will Justice Kennedy Do?
For decades the country’s top lawyers have tried to come up with a unifying theory for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s jurisprudence in hopes of winning over the closely divided Supreme Court’s key swing vote. Sometimes siding with …
Supreme Court: Government Faces Skepticism in Arguing Against Arizona Immigration Law
“You can see it’s not selling very well. Why don’t you try to come up with something else?”
That candid quote of the day comes from Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, responding to solicitor general Donald Verrilli’s argument before the High Court on Wednesday that a provision of a controversial Arizona law requiring police …
Why Obamacare May Stand: Reading Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s Swing Vote
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’s landmark health reform law. While conventional …
Health Care After the Court: If the Individual Mandate Falls, What Next?
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 …
The ‘Heart’ of Health Care Reform: Can the Law Stand Without a Mandate?
During the summer of 2009, when the health care reform debate was dividing the country and the “public option” seemed like the most important policy issue in a generation, the proposal to require all Americans to have health …
The Mystery of Donald Verrilli’s Supreme Court Choke
After Donald Verrilli’s halting performance defending a national health-insurance mandate before the Roberts court on Tuesday, the White House Wednesday morning issued a statement of support for their beleaguered solicitor …
Of Broccoli and Broken Bones
First, if you haven’t read Kate Pickert’s excellent coverage of Tuesday’s supreme court arguments about the Affordable Care Act, you should. Right now. Reading Kate, I find the performance of the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. appalling. After all the energy expended over 60 years in bringing universal health insurance to …
Inside the Supreme Court: Why Obamacare Supporters Are Getting So Nervous
For supporters of the two-year-old health reform law, Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing was supposed to be the day that the grownups took over. After the Affordable Care Act had been demonized and misconstrued and called a threat …
No Supreme Court Slam Dunk: Justices Grill Government on Health Insurance Mandate
The Obama Administration’s fight to preserve the new health care law’s individual mandate appeared to take a dark turn Tuesday. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing before the Supreme Court that the government has …
On Day 1 of Health Reform Arguments, Justices Sound Skeptical that Challenge Is Premature
If the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s sweeping new health care law, seems complicated, the Supreme Court case parsing its constitutionality is far more so. This week, over three days, justices on the High Court are …
Supreme Court Health Care Protests in Pictures
TIME captures proponents and critics of the Affordable Care Act as they square off outside the Supreme Court, which is hearing arguments on the law’s constitutionality this week in Washington.