It was 1987. After a 14-2 regular season, the New York Giants advanced to the Super Bowl. After a hard-fought game, they finally won their first-ever Super Bowl, defeating the Broncos in a 39-20 victory.
After the game, Phil Simms of the Giants coined a phrase that is now common currency in the land of post-victory interviews.
When asked what he was going to do now that he'd won the game, he said, "I'm going to Disney World!" (Disney subsequently paid him $75,000 for doing so.)
In June, after announcing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, whose vote and opinion determined the fate of the law, was asked, in the tradition of victors, if he, too, was going to Disney World.
Alas, he was not. He responded that he was going to Malta, "an impregnable island fortress," over the summer. This trip may have been wise, considering the political brouhaha that followed the decision's announcement.
Chief Justice Roberts held that the ACA could stand, but not based on the commerce clause grounds upon which the administration had primarily defended it. Instead, he upheld it under the taxing power – perplexingly, as he had to simultaneously hold that the Act was not a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, and was a tax for the purposes of determining constitutionality.
Unsurprisingly, he was alone in this logic. Still, four justices – Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor – agreed with the decision, though they upheld the Act under the Commerce Clause.
Commentators had a field day with the decision. Conservatives felt betrayed. Liberals felt betrayed. Conspiracy theories about Roberts' opinion flowed aplenty.
And, amidst all this turmoil, many congratulated the Chief Justice on saving the Court from politicization.
Whether you think this decision was celebration-worthy or cringe-inducing, it altered the trajectory of the American health care system and, consequently, will affect many Americans' lives, as do many Court decisions.
Though the Court won't reconvene until Oct. 1, it is possible to speculate on what some of the cases will involve this year. A preview of upcoming issues includes:
Race-based affirmative action: The Court has already agreed to hear Fisher v. University of Texas, in which a white student, Abigail Fisher, claims that she was not admitted to UT because of her race. Specifically, the case asks whether race can be considered when admitting and rejecting students to universities. As the law stands, race can be considered so long as it is only used to reach a "critical mass" of diversity in a student body.
Gay rights: The Court has been asked to hear cases on both California's Proposition 8 referendum and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
In the Prop 8 case, petitioners are asking the Court to uphold voters' rights to reject gay marriage via referendum. The state's Supreme Court ruled last year that, though the state's voters rejected gay marriage, the state would still recognize and grant same-sex marriage.
The second case involves DOMA. The Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 and signed by President Clinton, defines marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."
There have been many challenges to this Act. One such challenge is that of Edith Windsor, a woman who was forced to pay $360,000 in estate taxes after the death of her partner. She would not have had to pay these taxes had her partner been a man. She is thus asking that the law be struck down based on an equal protection claim.
Religious liberties: The Obama Administration may have won the first round of the ACA battle, but many are in it for the long haul. The ACA requires employers to provide insurance plans that cover contraceptives to employees, regardless of personal conscience, except in narrowly defined exceptions. Exemptions to the law are limited to "religious employers" – those whose business is tied to religious values, and whose business is classified as a nonprofit in the religious sphere. All other employers must provide insurance including contraception or pay a fine. If, for example, a Catholic businesswoman who morally objects to the use of contraceptives owns a shoe store, she is still legally required to provide her employees with insurance plans covering their use.
This year, this column will analyze these cases, should they come before the Court, and others like them. It will also explore more general-interest court news, including lower court proceedings, Supreme Court history and particular justices. Eventually, it will produce reviews of books about and by the Court's members.
The justices still have a few more weeks of vacation before they're back at work, but hopefully both they, and you, have had restful summers. They'll be deciding which cases they'll hear as we're finalizing which classes we'll take; and, with luck, these decisions will produce intellectually stimulating, interesting years for all of us.
Judicial Review
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