by Jeremy Leaming
President Obama’s warning that the Supreme Court should avoid destroying health care reform has not only irked a federal appeals court judge, but has spurred Republican leaders in the Senate to rush to the defense of the lifetime-appointed justices.
Responding to a reporter’s question about oral arguments in HHS v. Florida, where Justice Antonin Scalia embraced the 
simplistic broccoli argument, Obama said the high court would be ignoring precedent if it were to invalidate or greatly hobble the Affordable Care Act. The president noted that Supreme Court precedent holds that Congress has broad power to regulate commerce and to tax and spend for the general welfare. “That’s not just my opinion, by the way,” Obama said. “That’s the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices who said this wasn’t even a close call.” (Obama was referring to appeals court Judges Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton, who ruled that the health care law’s integral measure -- the minimum coverage provision -- was a valid exercise of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.)
As TPM reported, the president’s defense of the health care law apparently prompted Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit presiding in a challenge to a part of the Affordable Care Act to demand that Attorney General Eric Holder submit a letter to the appeals court stating the administration’s understanding of judicial review.
Holder responded in a letter to the appeals court judges in Physician Hospitals of America v. Sebelius that the DOJ “has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other Court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation.”
Holder noted that the question of judicial review was resolved in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison.
The attorney general also reminded the Fifth Circuit judges that judicial review was not an issue in the case before them.
authority to regulate matters with a “direct” effect on commerce, but not those that had an “indirect” effect. And it ruled that Congress could regulate matters of “national” concern, but not those of “local” concern.
eady proved it has no problem shunning precedent or being out-of-touch, for example see 
and strikes under commonly accepted rules. If anything good came out of Tuesday’s acrimonious argument, maybe we can finally put that misleading visual to rest. The Justices’ sharp comments on the constitutionality of the responsibility requirement made clear that not only are the Court’s ideological wings calling these pitches differently, it’s not even clear they’re playing the same game.