Watching Supreme Court rulings

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Watching Supreme Court rulings

All-Star panel weighs in

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," June 21, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, HOUSE SPEAKER: In the coming days I think you all know the Supreme Court will rule on the president's health care law, which are driving up health care costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers. And unless the court throws out the entire law, the House will vote to repeal whatever is left of Obamacare.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D - CA, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER : Let's hope and pray that the court will love the constitution more than it loves broccoli and that we will have a decision that is based on the merits and the Constitution of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Well, the House speaker and the House minority leader talking about the healthcare ruling. We did not get that today. We could get it Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday of next week as the Supreme Court comes back with rulings.

Susan we did get a ruling that was a hit for SEIU, the unions, that essentially said if they're going to raise fees for political ads, they need to let their members know, and it was a bit of a loss for unions overall.

SUSAN MILLIGAN, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: It was a loss for the -- I mean, it's certainly a hit for the unions, and they can't feel good after the failed effort to recall Scott Walker in Wisconsin. But it really didn't go fundamentally to the right to organize or collective bargaining or anything like that. I think most people probably would say it's one thing to pay union dues when you are not a member because you benefit from the contracts they negotiate. But paying an additional amount for political purposes is a different story.

BAIER: So let's talk health care. Do you think it comes out early next week? Who knows?

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER: If the Supreme Court would run all the keeping secrets department --

MILLIGAN: They don't leak. They really don't. They don't.

BAIER: Steve?

STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Yeah, I mean, I have no idea when to expect this. We have sort of, you know, every day that we think it might be coming everybody pays close attention to what is happening at the court.

But I think it will obviously have huge political implications no matter what the court decides, whether it decides to strike the entire law, whether it decides to invalidate the individual mandate, whether it decides to uphold.

And what has been interesting is there had been some grumbling in Republican circles that House Republicans, Senate Republicans hadn't done enough to sort of prepare for the eventuality of some kind of a decision. And it sounds like maybe in what would be akin to a cram session for an exam they have now done that planning. They have, they have this plan. John Boehner sent out this memo today walking through how he expects his members to act. What they will do, how to sequence this. So it sounds like both sides -- I know certainly on the left they have been doing that for quite a while. You've got outside groups, outside liberal groups that have been planning for literally months trying to come up with their arguments in case the law is invalidated.

BAIER: Most court watchers will tell you that they expect a five to four striking down the mandate. But there are so many different complexities to how they could rule. And how it would play out, Charles. And obviously, we will be talking about it once we get the full ruling but what is your sense?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I'm impressed by how well the secret has been kept as to when it's going to be released. I would propose that we entrust the cyber war against Iran, the drone war and future operations of the SEALs to the Supreme Court because at least it won't leak all over the front pages of the papers.

My other suggestion would be that we watch how the Democrats react. I think they've got a stark choice here. Assuming it goes against them, they have a choice of running hard against the Supreme Court and making it a campaign issue and saying we are up against congressional obstructionists, Republican obstructionists, and the same kind of obstructionism in the court and we have to change it. I think that is more likely to be a very aggressive attack on the court. We saw Obama dress the court down in the State of the Union address. We saw Obama almost threaten the court when it was deliberating on Obamacare about how unprecedented it would be if it acted against the health care law.

So I think they are capable of and would take the risk I think of attacking the court and making it a way to rally the base and say you got to elect me or you will have a court like this obstructionists which will stop progressive legislation for the rest of your lives.

BAIER: When you hear, Susan, people say the politics of this could play positively for President Obama if it is struck down, do you buy that?

MILLIGAN: Yes. I think that Charles is right. They would go after the court. But I think the smartest thing they did with this bill is to frontload some of the really popular stuff -- keeping your kids on until they're 26 years old, having no preexisting conditions for children. And I think it's 2014 that they couldn't, you know, say they wouldn't give you insurance for having preexisting conditions for adults. People don't want to give that up but it's hard to pay for that. You know, the argument is that you needed the mandatory coverage to get that. And if they start losing that, then they can blame the Republicans, although, a lot of health care plans talked about keeping that 26 thing anyway.

(CROSSTALK)

HAYES: -- the polls have gone down.

BAIER: We have many, probably, panels ahead about health care and the reaction to it. Thank you very much. That is it for this panel. But stay tuned for evidence that each party's nominee is trying hard to go after one particular group.

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