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In Moda Health Plan v. United States the Supreme Court will decide whether Congress may enact appropriations riders restricting the sources of funding available to pay health insurers for losses incurred that were supposed to be paid per federal law.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) risk corridor program provided that if a health insurance plan participating in the exchange lost money between 2014-2016 it would receive a payment from the federal government based on a formula defined in the statute. If it made money the plan had to pay the federal government based on a formula. The purpose of the program was to induce health insurance companies to offer plans on the exchange despite the fact they didn’t have reliable data to price the plans.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified a particular funding source the federal government could use to make payments. Congress passed appropriations riders for all three years disallowing that funding source to be used to make risk corridor payments.

Rarely does a Supreme Court case implicate the work of state legislatures like Georgia v. Public.Resource.org. In this case the Court will decide whether a state may copyright statutory annotations.

Georgia, through a Code Revision Commission, made up of the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker of the House, members of the Senate and House, and others, contracts with Lexis to draft the statutory annotations published in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA).

Annotations include “history lines, repeal lines, cross references, commentaries, case notations, editor’s notes, excerpts from law review articles, summaries of opinions of the Attorney General of Georgia, summaries of advisory opinions of the State Bar, and other research references.”

Let’s hope Justice Kagan is wrong about this ominous prediction in her dissenting opinion in Knick v. Township of Scott: “today’s decision means that government regulators will often have no way to avoid violating the Constitution.”

In a 5-4 opinion the Supreme Court held that a property owner may proceed directly to federal court with a takings claim. In Knick the Court overturned Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City (1985), which held that before a takings claim may be brought in federal court, a property owner must first seek just compensation under state law in state court. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) amicus brief urged the Court to keep Williamson County.

McDonough v. Smith is a case about forgery, deceit, fabricated evidence…and statute of limitations.

In this case the Supreme Court held 6-3 that the statute of limitations for a fabrication of evidence claim begins running upon acquittal. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief arguing the statute of limitations should begin running earlier.

Edward McDonough, commissioner of the county board of elections, processed forged absentee ballots, which he claimed he didn’t know were forged. Youel Smith was appointed to investigate and prosecute the matter. McDonough claims Smith “falsified affidavits, coached witnesses to lie, and orchestrated a suspect DNA analysis to link McDonough to relevant ballot envelopes.” The first trial involving McDonough ended in a mistrial. He was acquitted in a second trial.