Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Spending Power And Environmental Law After Sebelius, Erin Ryan
The Spending Power And Environmental Law After Sebelius, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
This article analyzes the Supreme Court’s new spending power doctrine and its impact on state-federal bargaining in programs of cooperative federalism, using the laboratory of environmental law. (It expands on the legal analysis in an Issue Brief originally published by the American Constitution Society on Oct. 1, 2013.) After the Supreme Court ruled in the highly charged Affordable Care Act case of 2012, National Federation of Independent Business vs. Sebelius, the political arena erupted in debate over the implications for the health reform initiative and, more generally, the reach of federal law. Analysts fixated on the decision’s dueling Commerce Clause …
Spending Power Bargaining After Sebelius, Erin Ryan
Spending Power Bargaining After Sebelius, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) decision, it’s easy to get lost in debate over the Chief Justice’s stated theory of the commerce power, or what precedential effect it will have under the Marks doctrine (given that his only supporters wrote in dissent). Still, the practical implications for existing governance is likely to be small, at least in the foreseeable future. After all, much of the debate over the individual mandate focused on how unprecedented it was: despite months of trying, nobody produced a satisfying example of this particular Congressional tool used in previous health, …