Severability in Larger Constitutional Context: Part Five in our Series on the California v. Texas Challenge to the Affordable Care Act

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR, EVAN CAMINKER, JASON MAZZONE

In this fifth of a series of columns examining the California v. Texas case challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar, Michigan Law dean emeritus Evan Caminker, and Illinois law professor Jason Mazzone discuss severability in a larger context and explain why, in their view the majority and minority positions are partly right and partly wrong. The authors conclude that if the Court invalidates and enjoins the individual mandate, it should reject the challengers’ substantive express inseverability claim that the entire ACA remainder should be enjoined.

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Haggard v. Texas

Docket: PD-0635-19

Opinion Date: December 9, 2020

Judge: Barbara Hervey

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The issue presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the Confrontation Clause was violated when the trial judge allowed Suzanne DeVore, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), to testify against appellant James Haggard, from Montana, using a two-way video system. The Court concluded based on the trial court record that admitting DeVore's remote testimony violated the Confrontation clause. The Court reversed the court of appeals, and remanded the case for a new harm analysis.