More opinions coming today. Follow live at (where else?) Scotusblog.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Heh. From Amy Howe: “Don’t type the phrase ‘the Ninth Circuit is affirmed’ that often. My fingers rebelled.”
[Update a couple minutes later, scrolling through]
Court ruled against the government in Horne, in favor of the raisin farmers. This is potentially huge. It could be major blow to idiotic anti-market agriculture policies dating back to the Depression.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here is Amy’s round up of today’slast week’s court action, prior to today’s rulings [oops].
[Late-morning PDT update]
Hearing that more decisions will be announced not only on Thursday, but Friday as well. Both King v. Burwell and the same-sex marriage rulings will be huge.
[Late-afternoon update]
Ilya Somin discusses the implications of the Horne ruling:
whatever one thinks about the compensation issue, the Court’s holding on the question of whether a taking has occurred is an important victory for property owners. It ensures that personal property gets the same level of protection as real property under the Takings Clause, and that the government cannot avoid takings liability by giving owners a small share of the proceeds from the disposition of their property.
The ruling also calls into question a number of other similar agricultural cartel schemes run by the federal government. In addition to property owners, consumers of agricultural products are likely to benefit from the decision, if these cartel schemes can no longer operate. Freer competition between producers in these agricultural markets will increase the amount of goods sold, and thereby lower prices. Lowered food prices are of particular benefit to poor and lower-middle class consumers, who generally spend a higher proportion of their income on food than the affluent do.
Republicans don’t emphasize enough how these market interventions by the government hurt the poor. Including minimum wages laws.
The raisin farmer one was insane. The FDA had stretched the interpretation of the Commerce Clause to mean that they could seize without compensation almost half of a farmer’s crop of raisins.
Reason.com has a handy flowchart on the raisin operation. End result was that raisin farmers subject to the program lost something like $85 million in revenue in 2002-2003 because the Feds seized almost half their crops, sold it for less than market value (or gave it away), then took a huge cut of the proceeds and returned to the farmers slightly more than a third of market value.
Now if they’ll only apply the same “takings” reasoning and rule against civil asset forfeiture, that would be something. The 5th and 14th Amendments explicitly prohibit the taking of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. However, police and other government agencies can seize your property at any time without charging you with a crime. You then have to fight to get your property back. How can that possibly be constitutional?
If the program is unconstitutional, is there any reason that farmers shouldn’t get compensation going back to the ’40s? Huge class-action suit against the Dept of Agriculture. How much money is that, I wonder?