Justice, Inc.

Supreme Court of the United States of America–the highest court in the land–heard arguments for the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also cailed Obamacare by some. This might not be news to you.

Last week, though, President Barack Obama claimed that the Court would not invalidate his brainchild, for that would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary step.” After all, the law was passed by a “democratically elected Congress” — not to mention a “strong majority.” Echoing what some call the conservative’s problem with the Supreme Court, the President even drug in “judicial activism” — the justices overstepping their bounds.

The Court may indeed uphold the law, but it will not be because of the President’s political pressure or arguments. Here’s why:

1. Since the founding of the United States of America, “the utility and necessity of a federal judicature” was clearly present, according to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 78.

It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever.

2. The law was not passed by a strong majority. Anyone who remembers the political nightmare it was passing the bill should also remember the amount of arm-twisting in Congress and name-calling in town halls took place before the bill meagerly passed through to the President’s desk.

3. The President’s political rhetoric will–most likely–have no sway, despite its historicity. Such a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Supreme Court has not shown its head since the days of President FDR and President Andrew Jackson in the 1820s!

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the law also known as ObamaCare. 26 states have sued the federal government. They argue that the Congress overstepped its bounds by instituting what is known as the individual mandate, a section of the act that requires American citizens to procure health insurance or pay a fine. Under the guise of the interstate commerce commerce clause, Congress has usurped the powers that should belong to the states, they maintain.

One of the principal questions at stake, in this case, is whether or not the Supreme Court will remain non-partisan. Is it possible for the Court to look solely at the constitutionality of the act when such a heated debate surrounds the law?

Most Americans say no.

In fact, according to recent poll by Bloomberg, approximately 75% of Americans think that the court will not base its ruling solely on the law’s legal merits. After all, one can scarcely forget how much of a political fiasco the law’s passage was. That summer was heated — and I’m not talking about the temperature.

However, in a 2010 interview with Bloomberg News, Justice Stephen Breyer told Bloomberg argued that politics doesn’t influence the court’s decisions. “It would be bad if it were there.” The Justices on the bench maintain that their integrity remains intact.

On February 7th, a federal appeals court in San Francisco, California ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Proposition 8, a law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman, has been under fire ever since it was passed by 52% of the vote in 2008.

U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt (considered to be among the most liberal appellate judges), in the Opinion of the Court, declared, “Proposition 8 serves no purpose and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Effect of Case on Public Policy

According to Ed Whelan, writing in the National Review Online, ”In the grand scheme of things, there is nothing enduringly significant about today’s ruling” simply because–

1. “The composition of the Ninth Circuit panel meant that there was” no doubt in anyone’s mind as of the outcome, wrote Whelan.
2. The court was a stepping stone in Proposition 8′s passage to the Supreme Court.
3. The court took a narrow approach in striking down Proposition 8. In short, it did not address the issue of whether the Constitution protects the rights of all same-sex couples to marry. Instead, because same-sex couples had the right to marry for a brief time in California, a proposition cannot take that away. If a minority group possesses a right, the people of a state do not possess the Constitutional power to “use their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed,” wrote Reinhardt.

For whatever reason, internet users feel more free to say what is on their mind than face-to-facers do. As more and more people setup profiles online, the more open people feel about posting online.

In short, we live in an increasingly virtual age. From politics and religion to movies and books, many, if not a majority, post what they think online. Don’t believe us? Think of it this way: how many Facebook arguments have you been in?

This, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing, but, obviously, on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and (yes, even) blogs, what a person says online matters. However, an from a legal perspective, interesting questions arise: does the First Amendment prevent Congress from making laws about user-generated internet content? Is there a difference between innocent teenage badgering, cyberbullying, and abusive language?

According to the LA Times, a Pittsburgh high school principal saw a fake-MySpace profile of himself that used profanities to describe him. In West Virginia, “a school principal found out that a girl had created an online site to maliciously mock another girl as a ‘sl*t’”

In an interview, the principal at Blue Mountain Middle School in Pennsylvania, James McGonigle, “It made me out as a pedophile. If any of those accusations were taken seriously, I would have been put through a wrenching investigation,” he said in an interview.

When the students were suspended from school, they filed lawsuits. According to their lawyers, the First Amendment of the Constitution protects peoples from ”being punished for postings from their home computers.” Their lawyers (from the ACLU) said the fake profile of the principal was “juvenile humor” that should be ignored.

Now, the Supreme Court is set to hear the cases. Their decision: define the line between the privacy of students to use their home computers as they wish and the authority of school districts, principals, and teachers to punish and/or prevent such behavior. According to David L. Hudson, a 1st Amendment scholar at Vanderbilt University, ”The court needs to explain when school officials have the power to regulate off-campus student speech.”