Politi-Fact Rates Obama’s SCOTUS Claim “False” and Jeff Schreiber a Constitutional Scholar

By Duane Lester
All American Blogger
April 5, 2012

PolitiFact has weighed in on President Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court and found it wanting in truthiness:

Our ruling

That was a lot of Supreme Court history. First, let’s review Obama’s statement: “Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

There’s simply no support for the assertion that the law was passed by a “strong majority.” It was passed along party lines in a sharply partisan climate, and the 60 votes in the Senate were the minimum needed to keep Republicans from bottling it up in a filibuster.

But the “unprecedented” idea is more nuanced. It’s without question that the Supreme Court overturning a law passed by Congress — by any margin — is a common and routine occurrence, and by no means without precedent. Volokh gave us a close analogy with the case of Boerne vs. Flores, a religious freedom law that glided through Congress but was held unconstitutional by a majority of the court, including two of its liberal justices.

However, Obama’s elaboration a day later at least gives us more to think about. He argued that invalidation of the health care law would represent a court action unseen since the Great Depression on an issue that affects every American. Ornstein echoed that interpretation, saying that a ruling by the court which overturns a major social policy and challenges prior court rulings would be unprecedented.

But we’re taking Obama literally, and that historical perspective was not reflected in his original statement, which is what we’re ruling on. He simply said the law passed with a strong majority and overturning it would be unprecedented. Wrong and wrong. We rate the statement False.

On last night’s All American Radio, after I ruined the end of George R. R. Martin’s “A Dance of Dragons” for Jimmie Bise, I talked with Jeff Schreiber of America’s Right about his open letter to the president. In it, Jeff wrote:

Wave the white flag, Mr. President. Or, preferably, you can continue to make a fool of yourself. In my Trial Advocacy class at Rutgers-Camden, after all, we were taught how do deal with opposing counsel who was floundering in front of a judge or jury: sit tight, smile, and just let the other side self-destruct.

Now, Rutgers-Camden is a fine school, but it sure ain’t Harvard. Nevertheless, I’m the one who is sitting tight and smiling.

While I don’t have a photo of Jeff actually sitting tight and smiling, I went ahead and made this for the occasion:

Yep, Mr. President. That just happened.

Rutgers-Camden FTW!