Health care stakeholders fete Scalia, Thomas
Hours after the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court conferenced to consider the challenge to the federal health care overhaul Thursday, two justices were the featured guests at an event co-sponsored by a number of stakeholders in the case.
According to the Los Angeles Times, among the sponsors of Thursday night’s Federalist Society annual dinner, which honored Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, was the law firm Bancroft. Bancroft partner and former Solicitor General Paul Clement is the lead attorney in one of the three health care cases the Court agreed to take up.
Another sponsor of the event was Jones Day, which represents one of the trade associations that also challenged the law.
And a third sponsor was pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which obviously has a financial stake in the cases’ outcome.
Of course, those were among a dozen sponsors of the event, and at the time the parties had no way of knowing that the Court had voted to take the cases up earlier that day. The Court didn’t announce its certiorari grant until Monday morning. Also, as the Times pointed out, the justices have attended Federalist Society events for years, and their attendance breaks no ethics rules.
