Health care law in limbo during government shutdown

 The appointment of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker may be delayed to the government shutdown. Photo Credit: Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call file photo as reported by Roll Call, 1/11/19.

The appointment of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker may be delayed to the government shutdown. Photo Credit: Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call file photo as reported by Roll Call, 1/11/19.

In December, a federal judge in Texas struck down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but under appeal, the status of the health care law remains in limbo during a partial government shutdown.

“The partial government shutdown halted a major challenge to the 2010 health care law among other civil litigation on Friday, as Justice Department lawyers sought the same in a challenge from three Senate Democrats to the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general,” reports Rollcall.com.

“The federal court system will start feeling the crunch of the shutdown on Jan. 18 when the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts estimates it will run out of the court fee balances and other non-appropriated funds that so far allowed for regular operations,” notes an article by Roll Call.

“Courts have been asked to delay or defer non-mission critical expenses, such as new hires, non-case related travel, and certain contracts to stretch funds to that date. Criminal cases are expected to proceed uninterrupted.”

‘Dreamers’ could see fate resolved by Supremes

Photo Credit: Julián Aguilar/The Texas Tribune as reported in The Texas Tribune on 7/31/18.

Photo Credit: Julián Aguilar/The Texas Tribune as reported in The Texas Tribune on 7/31/18.

The future of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, will become clearer as federal courts wrestle with the Obama-era initiative to shield young immigrants from deportation. And the U.S. Supreme Court may end the controversy once and for all.

The Washington Post reports that on Friday, Aug. 17, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled that the Trump administration must continue processing renewals but that the administration can halt new applications for “Dreamers” while DACA is under appeal.

“Bates is one of the federal judges presiding over four different lawsuits aimed at maintaining or eliminating DACA, which was created by executive order by President Barack Obama and then ended by President Trump,” the Post reports.

The Texas Tribune notes that on Aug. 8, federal District Judge Andrew Hanen was scheduled to hear the state’s request for a halt to the program preliminarily “while the issue meanders its way through the federal court system.”

The fate of DACA could ”end up in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court,” the Texas Tribune reports. “In June, the Department of Justice asked Hanen to delay a possible injunction ‘so the United States can seek stays of all the DACA injunctions in the respective courts of appeals and the Supreme Court,’” the Tribune notes.

Huffington Post Documents How Bad Civil Courts Rationing Is

Rationing justice, civil and criminal, begins with overburdened courts. And Huffington Post just released well-researched report on just how bad it’s become on a federal level, with more than 60 judgeships going unfilled and pleas for more help being ignored by the U.S. Congress. In some cases, judges are handling hundreds more cases than “normal” while pushing cases further and further away, threatening anyone’s hopes of achieving justice.
 
The report explains: “The Huffington Post talked to half a dozen federal judges about how court vacancies and the lack of new judgeships affect their workloads. All of them said they feel like they’re underwater and desperately need more judges, but at the same time, they aren’t comfortable calling out Congress for failing to do its job. Many didn’t feel it appropriate for a judge to weigh in on legislative or political matters. So their situations don’t change.”
 
It includes: “For the most part, we’ve just resigned ourselves that this is our fate and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Judge Morrison England Jr., the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which includes O’Neill’s Fresno division. “We’ve complained. We’ve begged. We’ve cajoled. We’ve done everything you can humanly do to try to get additional judgeships.” Yahoo adds that the Fresno division is among the hardest hit in the country, and even getting the allotted judges would not meet caseload demand.