Respondents' Merits Brief Filed in Individual Mandate Case

(Orin Kerr)

The private respondents' brief, with Michael Carvin of Jones Day as counsel of record, and our co-blogger Randy Barnett as co-counsel, is available here. The state respondents' brief, with Paul Clement counsel of record, is here.

When DOJ filed its brief, I noted that "The word 'Sutton' appears 14 times, and the word 'Kavanaugh' appears 5 times." I suppose the analogous stat for the respondents' briefs would be that the word 'unprecedented' appears 23 times. I was interested (and somewhat surprised) that the word "inactivity" appeared only 4 times between the two briefs; it was mentioned 3 times in the private respondents' brief, and only once in the state respondents' brief (and in the procedural history section rather than the argument section).

Hat tip: ACA Litigation Blog.

UPDATE: I have rewritten the post because the state's brief is also now available.