Does Justice Roberts Obamacare opinion contradict itself? Chief Justice Roberts' opinion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius upheld the ACA individual mandate as a tax. Disagreeing with the joint dissenters (Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia), Roberts, in part III-C of his opinion, demonstrates that the labels used by Congress can not be controlling. (Penalty versus tax.) The "question of the constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it undertakes to exercise." (Roberts quoting Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co.) Since this levy is within the Taxing Power, the characterization (label) Congress gives the exaction does not effect to its constitutional status as a tax. Yet in Part III-D JUSTICE GINSBURG questions the necessity of rejecting the Government’s commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction. the Chief Justice seems to say that only a strained reading of Congress's "label" and the doctrine of Constitutional Avoidance allow the mandate to be upheld as a tax. Isn't there tension between these two parts of the opinion?
Isn't there tension between these two parts of the opinion? There is perhaps some tension, but the resolution of that tension is clear. There is certainly no self contradiction. The most obvious tension is between the chief justice's line of reasoning and Justice Ginsburg's. It may be described thus: Justice Ginsburg would uphold the statute by interpreting it as a tax, avoiding the need to consider whether it is authorized as a command under the commerce clause. Chief Justice Roberts notes that the statute reads on its face as a command and says that this requires the court to find that this &quot;more natural&quot; reading is &quot;not authorized&quot; before it can consider other interpretations under the &quot;duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible.&quot; Only by following this line of reasoning may the court consider whether the provision may be upheld under the power of taxation. The reasoning paraphrased in the first paragraph of this question explains that the court may go beyond congress's labels -- the claimed basis of its authority -- when it interprets a statute. The quotation from the opinion explains that it is however necessary to consider congress's claimed source of authority first, before moving on to other possible sources. There is a bit of a chicken-and-egg nature to this: if we don't consider (and reject) the commerce clause argument, we can't justify the statute as a tax, but if we can't justify it as a tax, we have to consider the commerce clause argument. Ginsburg's reasoning would avoid this paradox. Therefore, to the extent that a chicken-and-egg paradox is &quot;tension,&quot; yes, there's internal tension in Roberts' reasoning, but not outright contradiction. The more significant tension is between Ginsberg's desire to avoid considering the commerce clause justification and Roberts' reasoning that requires it.
There is no parallelism between the Texas decision and the proposed lawsuit. In the anti-mifepristone lawsuit, there exists a statute granting the FDA authority to regulate and review new drugs, and a petition procedure whereby citizens can state ground for the Commissioner of Food and Drugs to consider a regulatory action. There is no statutory basis on which a ban of meat-eating could be created by executive action. Congress cannot be sued for not passing a law (failure or refusal of Congress to pass a particular law is not justiciable). If, for example someone were to submit a petition to the FDA urging such a regulation, the petition would have to be denied because the FDA does not have statutory authority to issue such a regulation. As argued here, the anti-mifepristone plaintiffs lack standing in that case, so one can expect that to be a substantial issue in the subsequent appeal.
The Validity of State Wealth Taxes Yes. States can impose wealth taxes, although this doesn't clarify the validity of a federal wealth tax. States have broader taxing power than the federal government in terms of kinds of taxes that they may constitutionally impose. A state may impose any tax (1) that does not unduly discriminate against a federally protected constitutional civil liberty (like freedom of the press), (2) that does not purport to tax the federal government (arguably any other sovereign) without its consent, (3) that does not unduly discriminate against interstate commerce, and (4) that has some rational basis. Apart from these specific limitations and (5) any found in state law or the state's constitution, (6) a state's taxing power is plenary as to conduct or activity or property that has a sufficient connection to the state to provide it with jurisdiction. A recent U.S. Supreme Court case repealed some clear rules of the road regarding what states do not have the jurisdiction to tax, effectively increasing state tax jurisdiction considerably, for example, to impose sales taxes on Internet retailers. the biggest problem for a state like California trying to extract revenue from its uber-wealthy populace would be that they would simply move their residence and use any other possible legal loophole to avoid having to pay. This is true. The primary question regarding the validity of a state wealth tax would not be whether a state could impose a wealth tax, but what assets could a state make subject to its state wealth tax. This might be easy to answer in the case of real property, but hard in the case of intangible property or property held via entities. Federal statutes may, however, establish which states have jurisdiction to tax which assets with a state wealth tax as part of the power to regulate interstate commerce, or by ratifying a compact reached between multiple states which have state wealth taxes. Still the facts that many countries in the European Union impose or have historically imposed wealth taxes that generate significant tax revenue, despite the easy ability to the affluent to relocated to other countries in the E.U. that is closely analogous to that of U.S. states seeking to do the same thing, suggest that this is not an insurmountable task, even if there might be some leakage of untaxed wealth at the margins. The Validity of Federal Wealth Taxes In contrast, Congress may only impose taxes expressly authorized by some provision of the U.S. Constitution as amended. The applicable case law on the issue of the constitutionality of a federal wealth tax is not entirely settled. The gift, estate and generation skipping transfer tax system has been held to be constitutional, but since this is a tax imposed on transfers of wealth, it is arguably a tax in lieu of an income tax treated separately for ease of administration (since gifts and inheritances are within the core definition of income in the Internal Revenue Code at Section 63, but then specifically exempted from income taxation in lieu of donative transfer taxes like the gift and estate tax, in a separate statutory Section 102 of the Internal Revenue Code.). Federal property taxes in areas not in exclusively federal jurisdiction (e.g. Virginia rather than the U.S. Virgin Islands) were briefly in force in the 1700s, but were repealed before they could be subject to a constitutional challenge. Income taxes, even at 90% marginal tax rates, have been upheld as valid. The analysis and doctrines involved are rather involved for a short answer in this forum, and I am fairly certain that there is published legal scholarship arguing both sides of this question of first impression. In a nutshell, a federal tax must either be an income tax; tax imposed on states rather than individuals on a per capita basis; or an excise tax or duty or tariff. The first two types of taxes are comparatively well defined. The third is the subject of thin, mushy and somewhat inconsistent or indeterminate case law. One could argue, for example, that a wealth tax is really a form of income tax on imputed income from assets that could generate additional value to the owner even if the value that arises from this ownership is not monetized or realized. This argument would be particularly strong if wealth taxes paid with respect to an asset were allowed as a tax credit against taxes imposed on income generated by that same asset, in a manner similar to the foreign tax credit today. A wealth tax clearly isn't a per capita tax on a state government. No such tax has ever been imposed for any meaningful amount of time and has never been a more than nominal source of federal revenues if it has ever generated any federal revenues. There is also a credible argument that a wealth tax is a constitutionally valid excise tax or duty or tariff, focusing on the excise tax component, which is quite ill defined, because the courts have tended to side with the government on issues of the scope of the federal power to tax except in the clearest and most blatant cases of violations of the federal power to tax.
There is a saying that you can't sue city hall: that is applicable here. Governments enjoy sovereign immunity, and cannot be sued for their errors of judgment unless they specifically allow it. Safety regulations are an example of a situation where the government hold all of the power and shoulders none of the responsibility. If a government forbids sale or use of a substance on some grounds (could be safety, could be economic impact, could be something about preventing the moral decay of society), and the grounds later turns to be false, you cannot sue the government because of lost business opportunities. Generally speaking, that which is not prohibited is allowed, so there would have to be an affirmative duty for the government to prevent all forms of harm. If there were such a legal duty, there is a miniscule legal foundation for suing the government for shirking its duty. That is not a completely hypothetical possibility, in that the state of Washington imposes a constitutional duty on the legislature to provide public education, and the Supreme Court has done things to enforce this duty (the contempt of court fines are up in the realm of $80 million). Since there is no jurisdiction that imposes a duty on the government to absolutely prevent all harm, you won't be able to sue the government if they fail to outlaw a thing that is eventually proven to harm someone.
Distinguishing a case which was decided by a higher court does not violate the doctrine of stare decisis. If the case can be distinguished, then it is not a controlling precedent. The term &quot;controlling&quot; indicates not only that the decision is binding on lower courts, but also that it applies to (or cannot be distinguished from) the facts of the specific case in question. Whether a precedent is &quot;controlling&quot; or not, in a particular case, could itself be a question for an appellate court. So if a lower court distinguishes a previous decision and therefore declines to follow it, the appellate court could say that was an error, and set aside the lower court's decision for not following a controlling precedent.
So it's not that SCOTUS is declining to review the matter on Constitutional Grounds but that it's declining to rule because 1.) It's a military matter 2.) It's under review by congress. SCOTUS is basically saying that, of the three branches, they are the least equipped to deal with military policy and when a better equipped branch is reviewing the matter. SCOTUS doesn't want to dictate to Congress how to change the rules when Congress is in the process of changing the rules itself... but they can say &quot;Hey, we got our eyes on this as a constitutional matter so keep that in mind when you decide on what you're gonna do about this. When Congress makes a decision on this particular law (either change it or keep it), SCOTUS may take a look, but that doesn't mean they'll rule against it, as Congress and the Military can present an argument that it might be necessary for military defense reasons.
I will only address this part of the question: Who would be able to authoritatively decide the constitutionality of such a question, with all Supreme Court justices having clear conflict of interest on the matter? The Supreme Court could still hear such a case, as the justices make their own decisions about when to recuse themselves. In particular, they might decide to hear the case based on the "Rule of Necessity", which says roughly that a biased judge is better than none at all: a judge can hear a case, even in the presence of a conflict of interest, if there is no other way for it to be heard. See United States v. Will, 449 U.S. 200 (1980), in which the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that federal courts could try a case related to the salaries of federal judges. Another possibility is that the case could be brought in a lower federal court, say District Court. There is a question here: the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls" (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2), and I do not know whether Supreme Court justices are "public Ministers". However, if a lower court did have jurisdiction, it could rule on the constitutionality of the question, since a District Court judge would not have a significant conflict of interest. The relevant Circuit Court of Appeals could presumably hear an appeal. If the Circuit Court's ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court felt that they all had conflicts of interest (and decided not to invoke the Rule of Necessity), then they could simply not vote to grant certiorari, in which case the Circuit Court's ruling would stand.
&quot;Could Maine pass a law making New Mexico corporations and LLCs legally nonexistent in Maine (and removing the corporate veil in cases where Maine courts have jurisdiction)?&quot; No. The full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, and the dormant commerce clause doctrine of U.S. Constitutional law would both invalidate a Maine law to that effect. One might think that the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution (as opposed to the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment) might also invalidate this law (e.g., it also prohibits residents of another state from obtaining occupational licenses in a state). But, this is not the case, because the U.S. Supreme Court held in Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168, 180 (1868), that corporations are not protected by the privileges and immunities clause. See generally, here. This doesn't mean that Maine couldn't regulate foreign corporations in some manner that doesn't unduly discriminate against out of state corporations. For example, most states require out of state corporations that do business in that state to pay a small fee and make a simple filing with the Secretary of State of that state authorizing them to do business in that state as a precondition to filing lawsuits or counterclaims seeking relief in their state's courts. But, this is far from a denial of the very existence of the out of state corporation and doesn't, for example, prohibit the out of state corporation from defending itself against suits brought against it in that state's courts. Likewise, it does not prohibit an out of state corporation from owning property or from affording limited liability protections to its owners.