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Chief Justice Robert's Individual Mandate: The Lawless Medicine Of Nfib V. Sebelius, Gregory P. Magarian
Chief Justice Robert's Individual Mandate: The Lawless Medicine Of Nfib V. Sebelius, Gregory P. Magarian
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After the U.S. Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius held nearly all of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act constitutional, praise rained down on Chief Justice John Roberts. The Chief Justice’s lead opinion broke with his usual conservative allies on the Court by upholding the Act’s individual mandate under the Taxing Clause. Numerous academic and popular commentators have lauded the Chief Justice for his political courage and institutional pragmatism. In this essay, Professor Magarian challenges the heroic narrative surrounding the Chief Justice’s opinion. The essay contends that the opinion is, in two distinct senses, fundamentally …
The Anti-Leveraging Principle And The Spending Clause After Nfib, Samuel R. Bagenstos
The Anti-Leveraging Principle And The Spending Clause After Nfib, Samuel R. Bagenstos
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This Article offers an initial assessment of the Supreme Court’s Spending Clause holding in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (NFIB), which addressed the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act. As Justice Ginsburg pointed out, NFIB marks “the first time ever” that the Court has held that a spending condition unconstitutionally coerced the states. The implications of that holding are potentially massive, and some of the language in the decision, if read broadly, would seriously threaten the constitutionality of a broad swath of federal spending legislation. Notwithstanding some of the Court’s language, this Article contends that the case …