Bender talks about potential Supreme Court cases on PBS

Paul Bender, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, talked about the possibility of the Supreme Court reviewing SB1070 and Obamacare laws in the upcoming year on PBS’s Horizon on Oct. 6.

Bender said there is a chance the Court will decide to review the constitutionality of the Obamacare Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Bender said with the majority of the court solidly conservative, the Court would predictably strike it down.

“Since [Justice Sandra Day] O’Connor has left, the Court has really hardened because it was O’Connor and [Justice Anthony] Kennedy, three people on the right and four people on the left,” Bender said. “Then O’Connor was replaced with [Justice Samuel] Alito, whose probably the most conservative.”

Bender also said the SB1070 case has gathered enough notoriety to be considered for review, but the Court may decide to wait for other states to pass new immigration laws in order to consolidate them into one review.

“It’s a peculiar Arizona statute and there are other statutes in the pipeline and they may just wait and see,” Bender said. “The state wants to overturn it because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that critical parts of 1070, the central provisions, unconstitutional.”

Bender also noted the similarities of the two cases.

“Both involve federalism, the relationship between the federal government and states,” Bender said. “Immigration is primarily a federal subject. If the federal government wants to regulate it, its up to them how they do it.”

Click here to view the program.

Bender teaches courses on U.S. and Arizona constitutional law. He has written extensively about constitutional law, intellectual property and Indian law, and is coauthor of the two-volume casebook/treatise, Political and Civil Rights in the United States. Bender has argued more than 20 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and actively participates in constitutional litigation in federal and state courts.