Topic category:  Elections - Politics, Polling, etc.

On April 2, 2012, SILive's Tom Wrobleski reported that a United States Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare is expected soon and "[t]he justices could uphold or overturn the entire law,...strike down the individual mandate only, or strike the mandate along with other provisions" (www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/us_senate_candidate_wendy_long.html).

That's all true, but not news.

Wrobleski further reported that United States Senate candidate Wendy Long said while campaigning in Staten Island on April 27 that Obamacare is unconstitutional and she hopes it will be declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

That's all true, but not news, too.

BUT...Wrobleski quoted Long as saying, "If I were betting, I'd bet on a total overturn."

THAT is huge news.

Long is conservative and highly qualified to predict. She's not one to let her personal views distort her perception of reality or to make baseless predictions or to bet recklessly.

Total overturn of Obamacare would be a complete vindication of the rule of law and a complete disaster for President Obama (as well as for Long's chief rival, Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's junior United States Senator, an enthusiastic Obamacare supporter who should have known better than to vote for it).

Total overturn would show that in his zeal to "fundamentally transform" America and despite his oath of office, Obama disregarded the United States Constitution, and then most United States Supreme Court Justices did what they swore to do by declaring Obamacare unconstitutional and eschewed the temptation to be superlegislators and draft a constitutional substitute, because their job is not to try to salvage something by guessing what Congress would have substituted if it realized that the individual mandate, key to the whole law, would be held to be unconstitutional.

Wrobleski further quoted Long as saying that "[i]It won't be 9-0. But I think a majority will see the unconstitutionality of this legislation," and that Justice Anthony Kennedy made an "excellent" point when he asked during oral arguments whether the government can create a market in order to regulate it.

Unlike Gillibrand, Long is a constitutional scholar intimately familiar with the workings of the United States Supreme Court and a former United States Supreme Court clerk (to Justice Clarence Thomas).

Additionally, unlike Gillibrand, Long served for years as general counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network (now the Judicial Crisis Network) and skillfully promoted the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Long, already the Conservative Party nominee, dominated her rivals for the Republican nomination at the Republican Convention, George Maragos and Bob Turner, neither of whom is an attorney but both on whom opted to run after barely qualifying to participate in a primary without having to obtain signatures on petitions.

The Republican primary is on June 26.

The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare should be issued by then and New York's United States Senate race will take on national implications.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.