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Dec. 14th, 2010 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sethrakQuery for the more legislatively educated politics nerds of my flist:
Supposedly the current form of the Affordable Care Act, because it was the unpolished House draft passed by reconciliation, without going through the edit and cleanup process usually done when bills pass the Senate first or when the disparate versions passed by each house of Congress get smushed together in committee, does not include the otherwise-standard phrase "If any one part of this bill is struck down or deemed unconstitutional, all other parts of the bill remain unaffected and are still law". Or words to that effect.
Further supposedly, this means that if one segment of the healthcare law is stricken down, as was done yesterday by a federal appeals judge, then the entire law ought to be thrown out. However, for some reason, the judge's ruling makes no mention of this and generally is written as if the overall law still holds.
Is that boilerplate phrase missing?
If so, does it indeed render the entire law moot if part of the law is ruled against? Or is that interpretation somewhat akin to people who claim golden fringe on a courtroom flag means the court is really a maritime court and has no jurisdiction over the plaintiff?
Citations and links will be greatly appreciated.
Supposedly the current form of the Affordable Care Act, because it was the unpolished House draft passed by reconciliation, without going through the edit and cleanup process usually done when bills pass the Senate first or when the disparate versions passed by each house of Congress get smushed together in committee, does not include the otherwise-standard phrase "If any one part of this bill is struck down or deemed unconstitutional, all other parts of the bill remain unaffected and are still law". Or words to that effect.
Further supposedly, this means that if one segment of the healthcare law is stricken down, as was done yesterday by a federal appeals judge, then the entire law ought to be thrown out. However, for some reason, the judge's ruling makes no mention of this and generally is written as if the overall law still holds.
Is that boilerplate phrase missing?
If so, does it indeed render the entire law moot if part of the law is ruled against? Or is that interpretation somewhat akin to people who claim golden fringe on a courtroom flag means the court is really a maritime court and has no jurisdiction over the plaintiff?
Citations and links will be greatly appreciated.
