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8/3/2019 Elena Kagan Recusal: Supreme Court Won't Hear Arguments for Justice to Step Down From Health Care Cases

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1/24/12 1:2ena Kagan Recusal: Supreme Court Won't Hear Arguments For Justice To Step Down From Health Care Cases

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Elena Kagan Recusal: Supreme Court Won't Hear Arguments For

Justice To Step Down From Health Care Cases





First Posted: 01/23/2012 12:46 pm Updated: 01/23/2012 3:32 pm

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Supreme Court , Elena Kagan , Video , Elena Kagan Recusal , Freedom Watch , Health Care Constitutionality , Health Care Law SupremeCourt , Health Care Supreme Court , Kagan , Kagan Health Care , Kagan Health Care Law , Obama Health Care Law , Politics News

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday morning denied a conservative watchdog group'srequest to argue for Justice Elena Kagan's recusal from the health care cases slated for oral argument ilate March.

In early January, Freedom Watch submitted a strongly-worded brief to the Court urging the justices toforce Kagan off the case because she expressed support for the law in several emails while she servedsolicitor general.

Liberal groups have likewise called for Justice Clarence Thomas' recusal from the cases because of hiwife's participation in Tea Party-affiliated organizations that advocate against the Affordable Care Act

None, however, have taken Freedom Watch's step of directly petitioning the justices.

Kagan did not take part in the Court's consideration of Freedom Watch's motion. It is standard practice for a justice to stand aside wheneverrecusal motions toward -- or lawsuits against -- that justice come before the Court. Her recusal from this motion, however, does not indicatewhether she will ultimately recuse herself from the cases themselves, nor does the Court's denial of Freedom Watch's request mean that Kaganor Thomas, for his part -- will ultimately sit on the case.

Still, it remains unlikely that she will recuse herself given her participation in every other Affordable Care Act-related motion that has come toCourt from the moment its litigants first asked the justices to take up the cases.

It is unclear how Freedom Watch's motion would have taken shape. The Court will already be hearing five and a half hours of arguments onhealth care issues over the course of three days at the end of March. Neither Kagan nor Thomas has shown any indication that they will recuse

themselves from those arguments. Freedom Watch's brief did not ask for a separate session in advance of those arguments to clarify the twojustices' contested status, nor did it explicitly urge the Court to squeeze Freedom Watch into -- or add another hour on top of -- the alreadyextraordinary amount of time dedicated to the cases.

Nevertheless, one can surmise from the language Freedom Watch chose to employ in its brief that the organization was more interested in maka public statement than winning the sympathy of the justices.

"Today, the Supreme Court and the other two branches of government have assumed the role of a 'royalty' - in some ways worse than even KinGeorge III - who feel free to ignore the legitimate interests and grievances of 'We the People, because they believe they are a "protected class"and above the law," the brief contended.





Freedom Watch reserved its strongest words not for Kagan, but rather for Chief Justice John Roberts. A week before the organization filed itsbrief, Roberts dedicated his annual report on the state of the judiciary to defending the integrity of his colleagues and the Court's internal recusprocess.

"The comments of Chief Justice Roberts are an affront to the high ethical standards of our Founding Fathers and amount to a subversion of ourlaws," the brief said. "They are the result of someone who became Chief Justice by first ingratiating himself to the 'Washington establishment,and now seeks to act as the Chief Justice not just of the Court, but of this same establishment - which for decades has pushed the nation to thebrink of revolution by representing mostly its own interests, perpetuating and consolidating its power and selling out 'We the People.'"

At an oral argument earlier this term, the justices sat stonefaced before a lawyer who dared make a small joke at the expense of Justice Scalia's

voting pattern. All other considerations aside, then, it is not surprising that the justices would be unreceptive to ad hominem attacks against thechief who so recently defended their honor.

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elena kagan recusal: supreme court won't hear arguments for justice to step down from health...

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