Friday round-up

By Kali Borkoski
on Dec 17, 2010 at 1:54 pm

Coverage of the debate over health-care reform continues.  In a post for the Opinionator blog of the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse discusses the Rehnquist Court’s federalism cases, some of which Judge Henry Hudson cited in striking down the individual mandate provision earlier this week. Also at the New York Times, Jason Mazzone has an opinion piece on the challenges to health-care reform in which he concludes that “Judge Hudson’s analysis could prove irresistible to the Supreme Court and that there is a reasonable chance it will agree that the insurance mandate is invalid.”   Turning to the challenge currently pending in federal district court in Florida, Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal  Law Blog notes that at a hearing on Thursday U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson suggested that “[i]t would be a giant leap for the Supreme Court to say that a decision to buy or not to buy is tantamount to activity.”

At the BLT, Mike Scarcella reports on a recent decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals upholding the convictions of six protesters who were arrested in January 2007 for unfurling a thirty-foot, anti-death-penalty banner on the Court steps. Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences weighs in on the matter as well.

Writing for the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr discusses a recent concurring opinion by two judges on the Sixth Circuit in a case on remand after the Court’s unanimous decision in Abbott v. United States.  Judges Merritt and Martin posit that the Court “has now decided that the phrase ‘any other provision of law’ has a meaning exactly opposite to the ordinary meaning of the words”

At the National Law Journal, Marcia Coyle reports on Monday’s decision in Costco v. Omega.