What pisses me off about these Court rulings is people

[edhopper]

(not here mind you) saying Why didn't the Dems codify Roe? (they never had the votes to do it and only had the whole government 4 years in the last 40) Or why don't the Dems now change the law (same reason and not with M and S in the Senate)

Well it's not the Dems who could have prevented this, it is every voter who was told this would happen and still voted for the GOP. It was every voter who was just not "energized" by Hillary.

Look in the mirror fuckers, you did this. (again not "you" here, but we have all talked to these folks)

[Ocelot II]

1. If you voted for the Green candidate or any of those wack jobs

who claimed the Dems weren't pure enough, I offer my heartiest Fuck you.

[MineralMan]

3. +1000

[treestar]

2. the codification is a red herring

how would it help? It would just be found unconstitutional by the same court. It would have been brought up in the same case. The case held it was a state issue, so federal code would not have saved anything. The same court that came about because of the same people - not "energized by Hillary" wouldn't have done it. So yes they need to look in the mirror.

[Effete Snob]

4. " It would just be found unconstitutional by the same court"

Yep.

Same court (with more right wingers now) that limited the Medicaid expansion portion of Obamacare as an encroachment on state power.

It's a specious argument.

[treestar]

7. Yes. there was a good map the other day

on which states are where. Several were not established. The only answer is to get into campaigning in those states. The right will be there demanding abortion bans. So energy going into these unrealistic approaches needs to go instead to state level campaigning.

[Effete Snob]

8. "energy going into these unrealistic approaches"

You understand, of course, that there are people who want Democratic voters to put their energy into things that won't work.

[Zeitghost]

11. It would likely be upheld

Kavanaugh and Roberts and possibly others would not vote to overturn such a law. Both believe in the power of the elected legislature to govern where the Constitution does not specifically prohibit them. Their main objection has been the implied rights "emanating from the penumbra". that privacy, abortion, etc are based on.

[treestar]

12. they'd still uphold the state matter issue though

I would think.

[Zeitghost]

13. The ruling returns things to the States

Because they found it was not an inherent Constitutional right and there is no Federal legislation on the issue.

But there has been no ruling on the power of the Federal Government to regulate abortion based on its Constitutional powers like the commerce clause.

[edhopper]

14. They ignore Federal legislation all the time.

Like Voting rights and next the EPA. And Lawrence, Griswold and Roe found that it was in the Constitution, they just ignored it for their Confederate ideology.

[treestar]

16. How could they get it under the Commerce Clause

I remember a law professor said it runs to the ends of the earth. But since they've sent it back to the states, saying it is a state power, how to then turn around and declare it impacts interstate commerce - that'd be the question.

Remembering the case where the farmer's field all within one state could affect interstate commerce, but the price of wheat - could it be affecting the price of abortions that somes states don't allow it - hmmm.

[Zeitghost]

17. Declaring it a right

Has been sent down to the States. States can preserve the right to abortion in their State Constitutions.

Kavanaugh has already signaled he would not overturn a federal law, Roberts would also do so IMO.

Healthcare is commerce.

[Effete Snob]

24. Then how do you explain this

You think not getting beat up is a federal right?

Think again...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Morrison

United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded the powers granted to the US Congress under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Along with United States v. Lopez (1995), it was part of a series of Rehnquist Court cases that limited Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause.

The case arose from a challenge to a provision of the Violence Against Women Act that provided victims of gender-motivated violence the right to sue their attackers in federal court. In a majority opinion joined by four other justices, Chief Justice William Rehnquist held that the Commerce Clause gave Congress only the power to regulate activities that were directly economic in nature, even if there were indirect economic consequences. Rehnquist also held that the Equal Protection Clause did not authorize the law because the clause applies only to acts by states, not to acts by private individuals.

[Zeitghost]

26. It looks like the court explains it pretty good

Civil suits for assault are not economic activity. Reproductive healthcare is.

[Effete Snob]

27. Having been beat up is a health condition

The vast majority of civil suits are for the recovery of medical expenses. That is a huge chunk of the caseload.

Also, having half the workforce getting beat up has an economic impact.

But, that said, there is no reason the majority in this court would find a codification of Roe to be within the boundaries of the commerce clause.

Thomas, in particular, would say that the regulation of medical practice and allowable procedures is a state matter.

Saying it is "healthcare" doesn't prescribe an outcome for this court.

Who licenses doctors? States or the federal government?

Who licenses pharmacists? States or the federal government?

If a state is going to, say, revoke those licenses under various conditions, then that's up to the state, and that's what this court would say.

And we already have examples of this. As you may recall, some states have required doctors to say certain things to their patients about abortion, and some states have forbidden doctors from saying other things about abortion. They do this under the guise of "informed consent". You might think it is a simple First Amendment issue, but...

https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=jcl

OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND SAY ‘IDEOLOGY ’: PHYSICIANS AND
THE FIRST AMENDMENT

It is no guarantee that saying "healthcare" automatically moves a national law codifying Roe into an exercise of commerce authority that this court is bound to respect.

It's worth a try. But I think there is some underestimation of what we're dealing with.

I do agree with you that one can distinguish between VAWA and a Roe codification. I am simply not confident that a majority of this court would make that distinction. They want abortion illegal, so what is or is not in the commerce clause is not going to keep them up at night.

[Zeitghost]

28. Healthcare of anykind

Is an economic activity that affects nation wide markets. Getting beat up is not.

Kavanaugh has already said he would uphold a federal ban, Roberts would as well.

If you disagree fine, I'm just giving you my opinion.

[Effete Snob]

29. Kavanaugh has already said he would uphold a federal ban

That's not the same thing as saying he would uphold a codification of Roe.

If domestic violence were an industry, it would be a significant one:

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipvbook-a.pdf

Costs of Intimate Partner Violence
Against Women in the United States

Data about nonfatal IPV victimizations and resulting health care service use were
collected through the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), funded
by the National Institute of Justice and CDC. Based on NVAWS data, an estimated
5.3 million IPV victimizations occur among U.S. women ages 18 and older each year.
This violence results in nearly 2.0 million injuries, more than 550,000 of which require
medical attention. In addition, IPV victims also lose a total of nearly 8.0 million days of
paid work—the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs—and nearly 5.6 million
days of household productivity as a result of the violence.

Two million injuries and Eight million days of lost work affects nationwide markets.

And there is a reason that report is published by the CDC within the US Department of Health.

[Zeitghost]

30. You're correct

But I misspoke and got it backwards. Kavanaugh said he would uphold a federal law protecting abortion rights. I believe Roberts would as well as he has a long history of deferring to the legislature.

[Effete Snob]

31. It's worth a try

It is definitely worth doing.

Nothing is without its potential problems.

[Effete Snob]

25. The case you are referring to....

Wickard v. Filburn, the case you mention about wheat, is a decades-old case that was kind of the high water mark for commerce clause justifications. We were rationing food during the war. If farmers started selling their products solely in-state to avoid the wartime federal rationing laws, the whole system would have fallen apart.

It's been trimmed back quite a bit since then.

If we are talking about women's rights, then the Supreme Court striking down part of the Violence Against Women Act is much more recent and much more relevant:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Morrison

United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded the powers granted to the US Congress under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Along with United States v. Lopez (1995), it was part of a series of Rehnquist Court cases that limited Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause.

The case arose from a challenge to a provision of the Violence Against Women Act that provided victims of gender-motivated violence the right to sue their attackers in federal court. In a majority opinion joined by four other justices, Chief Justice William Rehnquist held that the Commerce Clause gave Congress only the power to regulate activities that were directly economic in nature, even if there were indirect economic consequences. Rehnquist also held that the Equal Protection Clause did not authorize the law because the clause applies only to acts by states, not to acts by private individuals.

...

The majority concluded that acts of violence that were meant to be remedied by VAWA had only an "attenuated," not a substantial, effect on interstate commerce. The government, however, argued that "a mountain of evidence" indicated that such acts in the aggregate had a substantial effect. For that proposition the government relied on Wickard v. Filburn (1942), which held that Congress could regulate an individual act that lacked a substantial effect on interstate commerce if, when aggregated, such acts had the required relation to interstate commerce. Once again, relying on Lopez, the majority replied that the aggregation principle of Wickard did not apply because economic effects of crimes against women were indirect and so they could not be addressed through the Commerce Clause.

The Court explained that the need to distinguish between economic activities that directly and those that indirectly affect interstate commerce was caused by "the concern that we expressed in Lopez that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to completely obliterate the Constitution's distinction between national and local authority." Referring to Lopez, the Court stated, "Were the Federal Government to take over the regulation of entire areas of traditional State concern, areas having nothing to do with the regulation of commercial activities, the boundaries between the spheres of federal and State authority would blur." The majority further stated that "it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States historically have been sovereign."

So, you don't have to go back to a 1940's wartime food-rationing case when you have a much more recent case where the court (and less conservative than this one) was willing to leave it up to the states what to do about beating up women.

[Lars39]

5. HuffPost article in this thread details the why...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216851560

[The Grand Illuminist]

6. The blame is squarely correct.

The question now is what to do about it.

[edhopper]

15. To start with

remind them the next time we have a candidate they say isn't personable enough, or some other bullshit.

[betsuni]

9. No no no, that's reality. To get people to not vote for Democrats, it must be relentlessly repeated

that Democrats have had and now have all the power and do nothing because they don't want to. Republicans are innocent bystanders. Majorities and numbers of votes have nothing to do with anything.

I dread the deluge of this crap all over the internet from now until the election. We have to repeat a MILLION TIMES that no, Obama didn't have a supermajority for two years, there were 60 votes for four months and ten days. Mythical bully pulpit fantasies about FDR and LBJ. It's exhausting.

[Demsrule86]

19. I have heard it here too...I guess some don't remember that Kennedy had a seizure at

Obama's inaugural lunch. And Al Franken wasn't seated until July of 2009 after a lengthy recount...And we had Lieberman too who voted for it in the end.

[betsuni]

23. Yes, and no matter how many times it's explained it doesn't make any difference.

They go and repeat the same wrong thing again and again. I don't see why anyone wastes time like that. Someone comes to DU and reads the thread, all they have to do is look it up. Nobody's going to believe the "Obama had two leisurely years of supermajority and didn't do anything, plus the ACA is a give-away to the insurance companies and bail outs bad Goldman Sachs so don't vote." That propaganda is targeted at younger people, not us old DUers who were there when history happened. Real waste of time.

[mcar]

10. Kick

[uponit7771]

18. How did ACA pass without 60 votes in the senate ?!?! Really, can someone answer that question ...

... without a 324 link blast?!

thx

[Demsrule86]

20. you really don't know? Senator Stephen Lynch a Democratic appointed from Massachusetts

was appointed before the special election and Al Franken was seated...the ACA was passed in the Senate on December 24th in 2009 in the Senate after Lynch and Franken were both seated.

[uponit7771]

21. with 60s seats cause that was my question, if we had 60 seats we had a controlling share of senate

[MustLoveBeagles]

22. I agree with you

I think that Democrates sitting out the mid-terms with some notable exeptions has hurt us very badly. All elections are important.