SCOTUS: From ArizonaScare to ObamaCare?

ArizonaScare™ — I made that up all by myself. Hmmm. I should go back and insert a trademark sign by that, just for the fun of it. (Hang on a bit while I see if I remember how to do it…)

ArizonaScare™ is my monicker for SB1070 (you know, Arizona’s infamous and/or noble immigration law). Don’t ask me why. 🙂

Might the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Arizona case lead us to correct conclusions about the ObamaCare case?

By now you surely know that, as CNN puts it,

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled largely in favor of the federal government in a case involving Arizona’s immigration law SB1070, striking down most of its key provisions. However, it upheld the most controversial provision involving police checks on people’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The Wall Street Journal offers up this:

The Supreme Court struck down the harshest parts of an Arizona law targeting illegal immigrants, ruling the state interfered with congressional authority over U.S. borders, but it let stand a requirement that police check the immigration status of people they stop for traffic or other offenses. […]

Although the status-check provision contains no criminal sanctions or authority for the state to hold illegal immigrants without federal permission, it emerged as the flash point of controversy over effectively enlisting every Arizona law officer in a state campaign to “discourage and deter” the presence of illegal immigrants, as the statute says.

The court left open the possibility that the surviving provision could be challenged, should it lead to prolonged detentions solely to determine immigration status.

If you want to read the verdict or whatever for yourself, Cornell University Law School offers it to you.

Does this decision give any hints of how the court has decided the ObamaCare case?

If I were to venture an uneducated guess-in-the-dark, I’d say that their decision in the ArizonaScare case should put some “scare” into opponents of ObamaCare.

Now, having taken this distracting break from some weighty personal matters, I take my leave from you…