Sonia Sotomayor Presses Attorney About Past Rulings In Case Challenging The Affordable Care Act

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During the oral arguments for Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc., Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned an attorney about the past rulings made in the given case.

Transcript

00:00the issue was so open and shut. Why do you think the Fifth Circuit didn't reach it? I saw that this

00:05was a huge part of the briefing before the Fifth Circuit. It was. It seems to me that

00:12it wasn't merely an assumption, it was a conclusion. In their whole reasoning, the

00:19conclusion was... Well, if I can defend the Court of Appeals for a moment, Justice Sotomayor. They

00:25did not need to reach that question because they concluded, number one, the task force members are

00:29principal officers. So there's no need to decide whether Congress vested the appointment authority

00:35and the secretary. You only need to reach that question if you think they're inferior officers,

00:39because even inferior officers still need to be appointed by the President and the Senate,

00:43unless Congress has affirmatively opted out of the default rule. But if you think they're

00:46principal officers, you don't need to reach that question at all. The second reason I think the

00:49Court of Appeals refused a rule on it was because they rejected the government's proposed severance

00:54remedy. And the court will also need to address this point if it wants to sever Section 299B-4A.

01:00because the severance remedy proposed by the government is premised on the idea that the

01:04secretary has constitutional authority vested by Congress to appoint the task force. If the

01:09secretary doesn't have that power because Congress hasn't vested the power in the secretary,

01:13then the government's severance remedy does not work because the inferior officers would still have

01:17to be appointed by the President and the Senate, even if they're considered inferior officers.

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