September 28, 2016

POS 383 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
In class today, Wednesday 9/28, we began by going through the Crosby opinion, and putting it into an outline format. We discussed the basis of Scalia's concurrence. I also talked about Obama's order of two weeks ago to terminate sanctions, and how the presidential ability to stop sanctions was a big part of the Court's decision. We then went through Arizona v. U.S., going through the different forms of preemption found by the Court majority, as well as the provision that was not preempted. We discussed the three dissenting opinions. We then left preemption and started the new federalism topic of coercion. We started with Steward Machine, and the did South Dakota v. Dole. We began our discussion of NFIB. I discussed the overall plan of Obamacare to push all groups into the insured circle, and talked about how the Congressional power to impose the individual mandate was located not in the commerce power, but rather under the taxing power of Congress. We began our discussion of the Medicaid expansion. We got up to the part of Roberts' opinion that looked at South Dakota v. Dole (p.565), which is where we'll pick up next week. The assignment for Wednesday 10/5 is to review NFIB, outlining (for yourself) the remainder of Roberts' opinion, as well as the Medicaid expansion parts of the Ginsburg and Scalia opinions. Also, read in the text pp. 415-439.