Antonin Scalia Proves He?s A Guy

[Merrill Goozner]

He lied about its size. The bill’s size, that is. The most conservative justice on the Supreme Court drew one of the loudest laughs during three days of oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act when he challenged the deputy solicitor general on the severability of the rest of the legislation from the individual mandate. How could nine justices pick which portions of the act would fall if the mandate is deemed unconstitutional, he wanted to know. “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?,” he asked. “And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks?” Let’s hope the conservative jurist pays closer attention to the facts when he turns his attention to the serious questions before the court. It’s true that the mainstream media and on the campaign stump have routinely attacked the “2,000-page Obamacare” bill. Julie Rovner on NPR repeated the 2,700 claim in her report this evening. Well, he original Senate submission did clock in at 1,994 pages, according to media reports at the time. But the final legislation, as printed by the Government Printing Office, is just 906 [...]

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