Supreme court moves to center of presidential race

CHARLES BABINGTON

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, sud­denly at the heart of pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics, is prepar­ing what could be block­buster rul­ings on health care and immi­gra­tion shortly before the fall election.

The court, some­times an after­thought in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, is throw­ing a new ele­ment of uncer­tainty into the cam­paign tak­ing shape between Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mitt Romney.

Sharply divided between four con­ser­v­a­tives, four lib­er­als and one conservative-leaning swing jus­tice, the court already is viewed as being nearly as par­ti­san as Con­gress. Within weeks it will rule on the con­tentious 2010 Democratic-crafted health care over­haul and a Republican-backed Ari­zona law that’s seen as a model for crack­ing down on ille­gal immigrants.

Obama some­times seems to be run­ning against the court, or at least its con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers. Whether that will sway vot­ers in Novem­ber is unclear. The pub­lic receives far less infor­ma­tion and visual imagery of the Supreme Court than it does of the White House and Congress.

An anti-court strat­egy by Obama “will fire up his base, but I doubt it will make any big­ger impact on swing vot­ers,” said Repub­li­can con­sul­tant John Feehery.

Mean­while, strate­gists in both par­ties are hop­ing they can turn the upcom­ing deci­sions to their advan­tage — for instance, pos­si­bly boost­ing Demo­c­ra­tic turnout among His­panic vot­ers unhappy with GOP immi­gra­tion poli­cies or embold­en­ing the Repub­li­can base if Obama’s land­mark health care law is ruled unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court already has played a huge and direct role in U.S. pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics. Its 5–4 rul­ing in Bush v. Gore set­tled the bit­ter 2000 con­test by bar­ring a Florida bal­lot recount, which Democ­rats hoped would pre­vent George W. Bush’s election.

And the 2010 Cit­i­zens United case, also decided 5–4, greatly eased polit­i­cal spend­ing restric­tions on cor­po­ra­tions and unions. It gave birth to the “super PACs” that are reshap­ing cam­paigns by rais­ing mil­lions of anony­mously donated dol­lars for TV ads attack­ing Obama, Rom­ney and tar­geted con­gres­sional candidates.

By hold­ing well-publicized hear­ings on the health care and immi­gra­tion cases — and now writ­ing keenly awaited deci­sions — the court is stir­ring pas­sions on key issues in this year’s elec­tions. Less clear, how­ever, is how the pol­i­tics might play out.

Many court-watchers expect the jus­tices to throw out most or all of the health law, which Repub­li­cans deri­sively call “Oba­macare.” Dur­ing pub­lic oral argu­ments, the most con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices ques­tioned Con­gress’ author­ity to require all Amer­i­cans to obtain health insurance.

Rom­ney may be poorly posi­tioned to exploit such a rul­ing, how­ever. The sim­i­lar “indi­vid­ual man­date” that he suc­cess­fully pushed as Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor was a model for Obama’s fed­eral plan.

“I don’t think the Rom­ney cam­paign will want to make health care a major issue,” said Demo­c­ra­tic strate­gist Doug Hat­t­away. “Every time Rom­ney crit­i­cizes the president’s health care reform, he opens him­self up to the Etch A Sketch attack.”

Hat­t­away was refer­ring to claims that Rom­ney switches back and forth on impor­tant poli­cies, eras­ing and redraw­ing pages when convenient.

Repub­li­can strate­gist Terry Holt said a court deci­sion over­turn­ing the health care law would be an unmis­tak­able set­back for Obama.

“It repu­di­ates the sin­gu­lar achieve­ment of this admin­is­tra­tion,” Holt said.

Fee­hery agreed, say­ing such a rul­ing would make Obama “look like a weak president.”

But it might help other Democ­rats, Fee­hery said. “It takes away a law that is unpop­u­lar,” he said, “but puts health care back on the agenda for the Democ­rats, which has been a win­ning issue in the past.”

In the immi­gra­tion case, the Obama admin­is­tra­tion opposes Arizona’s require­ment that police check the legal sta­tus of peo­ple they stop for other reasons.

The law, pushed by a Repub­li­can gov­er­nor and Leg­is­la­ture, has angered some vot­ers, includ­ing His­pan­ics, in bat­tle­ground states such as Florida, New Mex­ico and Colorado.

A num­ber of court ana­lysts pre­dict the jus­tices will uphold parts of the Ari­zona law but may over­turn oth­ers. That could ener­gize Amer­i­cans who want tougher sanc­tions, includ­ing depor­ta­tion, against mil­lions of ille­gal immi­grants in the country.

“This could prove prob­lem­atic for Rom­ney,” Fee­hery said, because it would pit his con­ser­v­a­tive base against much-needed His­panic vot­ers in tar­geted states. “If Rom­ney han­dles it right, by largely ignor­ing it, it could take out a major source of irri­ta­tion for His­pan­ics and maybe help a por­tion of them see the good side of Rom­ney,” Fee­hery said.

Ear­lier this month, Obama, a for­mer con­sti­tu­tional law pro­fes­sor, deliv­ered what some con­sid­ered a mis­lead­ing warn­ing to the court regard­ing the health care law.

“I’m 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,” the pres­i­dent said. “And I’d just remind con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tors that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest prob­lem on the bench was judi­cial activism or a lack of judi­cial restraint — that an unelected group of peo­ple would some­how over­turn a duly con­sti­tuted and passed law. Well, this is a good example.”

White House spokes­men tried to explain that Obama rec­og­nizes the court’s power to review laws passed by Con­gress. His point, said spokesman Jay Car­ney, is that the Supreme Court tra­di­tion­ally has “deferred to Con­gress’ author­ity in mat­ters of national eco­nomic importance.”

Posted by AP News on Apr 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.