SCOTUSblog, health care, and a few things you might have missed

By Tom Goldstein
on Mar 29, 2012 at 7:20 am

We’re so grateful to all our readers — old and new — for visiting during the health care arguments.  We received just over 800,000 hits, which is more in three days than in the entire first four years of the blog’s existence.

There were times that the blog slowed to a crawl; on Tuesday it essentially crashed.  We apologize for that. People like Megyn Kelly, Pete Williams, and Chuck Todd were incredibly generous in giving us shout-outs, and sites including Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics were very generous with links.  The upshot was that at some peak times we were getting more than 500 hits per second, and couldn’t keep up.  We expanded our server capacity three times.  Between now and the decision, we will actually rewrite a lot of our software code to make the blog operate more efficiently.

Thanks to all the members of the blog team, who worked so hard all three days.  That is especially true of Lyle, whose effort was beyond herculean, as you can see from all the references below to all his great work.

Now we wait.  If you want the best guess for when the case(s) will be decided, mark your calendar for June 28.

For ease of reference, here are our principal posts (and the key resources) for each of the arguments:

Anti-Injunction Act:  Lyle’s analysis; Amy’s Plain English; Kevin’s take; Tom’s audio highlights; the transcript; the full audio

Individual Mandate:  Lyle’s analysis; Amy’s Plain English; Kevin’s take; Tejinder’s audio highlights; the transcript; the full audio

Severability:  Lyle’s Analysis; Amy’s Plain English; Kevin’s take; Tejinder’s audio highlights; the transcript; the full audio

Medicaid:  Lyle’s Analysis; Tejinder’s audio highlights; the transcript; the full audio

Also, during those three days, the Court’s other business did not stop.  On Monday, the Court issued orders and opinions, which are summarized here.  In more detail, Lyle analyzed M.B.Z., and Steve Kaufhold’s analysis of the Credit Suisse decision is here.  On Wednesday, the Court issued three other opinions, which are summarized here.

There were two other posts of particular notice.  Lyle discussed the government’s effort to speed the Ninth Circuit’s consideration of the challenge to DOMA.  And he posted on the new petition for certiorari challenging Montana’s campaign finance statute.

Thanks again.