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Justices pepper health care law opponents with questions
Court Watch |
2015/03/05 21:52
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Supreme Court justices peppered opponents of President Barack Obama's health care law with skeptical questions during oral arguments Wednesday on the latest challenge to the sweeping legislation.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote is seen as pivotal, suggested that the plaintiffs' argument raises a "serious" constitutional problem affecting the relationship between states and the federal government.
The plaintiffs argue that only residents of states that set up their own insurance markets can get federal subsidies to help pay their premiums.
Millions of people could be affected by the court's decision. The justices are trying to determine whether the law makes people in all 50 states eligible for federal tax subsidies to cut the cost of insurance premiums. Or, does it limit tax credits only to people who live in states that created their own health insurance marketplaces?
During oral arguments, the courts' liberal justices also expressed doubts. In an earlier case involving the law, however, Kennedy was on the opposite side, voting to strike down a key requirement.
A ruling that limits where subsidies are available would have dramatic consequences because roughly three dozen states opted against their own marketplace, or exchange, and instead rely on the U.S. Health and Human Services Department's healthcare.gov. Independent studies estimate that 8 million people could lose insurance coverage. |
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Supreme Court sides with Kansas in water dispute
Court Watch |
2015/02/25 17:58
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.
The justices also gave Nebraska some of what it asked for and ordered changes to the formula for measuring water consumption. Nebraska argued that the formula was unfair.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing the majority opinion, said the court was adopting the recommendations of the independent expert the justices appointed to help resolve the states' differences.
The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river's water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado. Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.
"Both remedies safeguard the compact; both insist that states live within its law," Kagan wrote.
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson's office said it was pleased with the decision. The $5.5 million award is significantly less than the $80 million that Kansas had sought.
"We hope the decision will move the basin states forward and provide continued incentives toward shared solutions to our common problems," the office said in a statement. "We are confident that payment of the court's recommended award will finally allow us to leave the past where it belongs — in the past."
While calling the decision "reasonable," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he looked forward to working with his Kansas and Colorado counterparts to move forward. |
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'Saved by the Bell' Actor Due in a Wisconsin Court
Court Watch |
2014/12/31 17:34
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Dustin Diamond, the actor who played Screech in the 1990s television show "Saved by the Bell," is expected to appear in a Wisconsin courtroom.
Diamond is accused of stabbing a man during a bar fight on Christmas Day in Port Washington, where he currently lives. A criminal complaint charges Diamond with second-degree recklessly endangering safety, disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon.
A hearing is scheduled Monday afternoon in Ozaukee (oh-ZAH'-kee) County Circuit Court.
The criminal complaint says Diamond and his fiancee got into a tussle with two men and a woman at the Grand Avenue Saloon on Thursday night.
Diamond told police he accidentally stabbed one of the men while trying to defend his fiancee. The man was not seriously injured. Police say officers recovered a switchblade. |
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NY court: Chimps don't have same rights as humans
Court Watch |
2014/12/05 22:48
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A chimpanzee is not entitled to the rights of a human and does not have to be freed by its owner, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday.
The three-judge Appellate Division panel was unanimous in denying "legal personhood" to Tommy, who lives alone in a cage in upstate Fulton County.
A trial level court had previously denied the Nonhuman Rights Project's effort to have Tommy released. The group's lawyer, Steven Wise, told the appeals court in October that the chimp's living conditions are akin to a person in unlawful solitary confinement.
Wise argued that animals with human qualities, such as chimps, deserve basic rights, including freedom from imprisonment. He has also sought the release of three other chimps in New York and said he plans similar cases in other states.
But the mid-level appeals court said there is neither precedent nor legal basis for treating animals as persons. |
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