On January 3, 2020, a coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to review the recent Affordable Care Act (ACA) ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which found that the ACA’s individual mandate is now unconstitutional because Congress reduced the mandate’s penalty to zero dollars for an individual’s failure to have health insurance coverage.

The Fifth Circuit held on December 18, 2019 in a 2–1 decision that the mandate “can no longer be read as a tax, and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power.” The appellate court remanded the case and found that the district court was better positioned to address severability arguments that the federal defendants first introduced on appeal. A copy of the Fifth Circuit opinion is available here.

The California-led coalition seeks the Supreme Court’s review of the case during this term, which ends in June 2020. The petition argues that:

The actions of the lower courts have cast doubt on hundreds of other statutory provisions that together regulate a substantial portion of the Nation’s economy. States, health insurers, and millions of Americans rely on those provisions when making important—indeed, life-changing—decisions. The remand proceedings contemplated by the panel majority would only prolong and exacerbate the uncertainty already caused by this litigation.

Joining Attorney General Becerra in the filing are the Attorneys General of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota (by and through its Department of Commerce), Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Governor of Kentucky. A copy of the January 3, 2020 petition for writ of certiorari can be found here.