Destroying ObamaCare: Why conservatives want to turn the Supreme Court into a schoolmarm

The latest legal argument against the Affordable Care Act is a desperate ruse

Supreme Court
(Image credit: (GARY CAMERON/Reuters/Corbis))

The latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act maintains, in effect, that Congress authorized itself to establish insurance exchanges on behalf of the states, but wanted those exchanges to have no insurance to sell to no customers. It is not an easy position to defend.

So for conservative pundits, particularly those apparently uneasy with the baroque theory of legislative intent that was invented after the fact by the lawsuit's architects, a new justification has emerged. In this account, think of the Supreme Court as a schoolmarm: King v. Burwell offers the court an opportunity to teach Congress a lesson about how to draft statutes.

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Scott Lemieux

Scott Lemieux is a professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., with a focus on the Supreme Court and constitutional law. He is a frequent contributor to the American Prospect and blogs for Lawyers, Guns and Money.