Amici appointed for argument

The Supreme Court has just issued an order appointing two amici to argue the Anti-Injunction Act and severability points. Here is the text of the order in its entirety:

ORDERS IN PENDING CASES 

11-393  ) NAT. FED'N INDEP. BUSINESS V. SEBELIUS, SEC. OF H&HS, ET AL.
11-400 )  FLORIDA, ET AL. V. DEPT. OF H&HS, ET AL. 

H. Bartow Farr, III, Esquire, of Washington, D.C., is invited to brief and argue these cases, as amicus curiae, in support of the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the minimum coverage provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 26 U.S.C. §5000A, is severable from the entirety of the remainder of the Act.  

11-398  DEPT. OF H&HS, ET AL. V. FLORIDA, ET AL.  

Robert A. Long, Esquire, of Washington, D.C., is invited to brief and argue this case, as amicus curiae, in support of the position that the Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U.S.C. §7421(a), bars the suit brought by respondents to challenge the minimum coverage provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 26 U.S.C. §5000A. 

You can find the order here.

Here is a biography of Mr. Long from the Covington & Burling web site:

Robert Long is a partner who practices in the areas of appellate litigation, antitrust, and administrative law. He chairs the firm’s Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Group. Mr. Long has argued 16 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has played a substantial role in the briefing or oral argument of more than 100 cases in federal and state appellate courts. He was a law clerk to Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. From 1990 to 1993, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He is recognized as a leading appellate lawyer in Best Lawyers in America (also listed for administrative law, commercial litigation, banking and finance litigation, and ERISA litigation), Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers, Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers, Washingtonian "Top Lawyers," and Super Lawyers (also listed in the "Top 100" Lawyers in Washington, DC).  Mr. Long is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Mr. Farr is a named partner in the well known D.C. firm Farr & Taranto. He clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist (October term 1973), and served from 1976 to 1978 as an assistant to the Solicitor General.