YES, IT'S THAT JOHN ROBERTS – AT 7:37 P.M. ET:  Chief Justice John Roberts recently chided President Obama over the president's criticism, during the State of the Union message, of a Supreme Court decision.  The White House then chided Roberts over his comments.

Will there be a rematch?  There may well be.  It turns out that one of the gimmicks the House leadership is considering for ramming through the health-care bill raises some Constitutional questions.  So if the bill passes, and the president signs it, the whole matter may be dumped before the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts proprietor.  Oh, the justice in it.  The Politico reports:

The so-called “Slaughter solution” for enacting health care reform without a conventional House vote on an identically worded Senate bill would be vulnerable to credible constitutional challenge, experts say.

No lawyer interviewed by POLITICO thought the constitutionality of the “deem and pass” approach being considered by House Democrats was an open-and-shut case either way. But most agreed that it could raise constitutional issues sufficiently credible that the Supreme Court might get interested, as it has in the past.

“If I were advising somebody" on whether deem and pass would run into constitutional trouble "I would say to them, ‘Don’t do it,’” said Alan Morrison, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, who has litigated similar issues before the Supreme Court on behalf of the watchdog organization, Public Citizen. “What does ‘deem’ mean? In class I always say it means ‘let's pretend.’ 'Deems' means it's not true.”

COMMENT:  Now, wouldn't that be something?  The bill passes using the "Slaughter solution," and winds up on Roberts's desk, and the Supreme Court decides it's unconstitutional, 5-4, with Roberts providing the decisive vote.

Do these things only happen in dreams?

March 16, 2010