Monday, November 14, 2011

Court takes Medicaid question

So here are the two biggest consequences of the order:

* The Court has limited itself to the Florida case, and is presumably holding the Thomas More Law Center and Liberty University petitions. (It will likely need to appoint someone to argue the AIA question against the parties.)

* The Court granted on the Medicaid question. This is a bit of a surprise, raising the constitutional stakes of the case rather substantially. For if the Court were cut back on Congress's spending power, it would have significant long-term ramifications for the scope of federal power.