What’s Next On The Supreme Court’s Docket? Perhaps The HHS Mandate…

Laura Basset seems to think this may be in the offing. Back on Friday,the Huffington Post published her article entitled, Contraception Mandate Likely Headed To Supreme Court, Experts Say . Take a look,

The number of lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate climbed to 60 last week, and legal experts on both sides of the issue are predicting that the Supreme Court will take up the issue within the year.

Thirty-two nonprofit organizations, including religious hospitals and schools, have challenged the rule. The mandate is part of the Affordable Care Act, and it requires third-party insurance companies to provide contraception coverage to the nonprofits’ employees if they decide not to do so. While many of the lawsuits are either failing in court or moving slowly because they fall under President Obama’s one-year grace period for nonprofits, the 28 for-profit companies that are suing the administration are seeing their cases move much more quickly.

The most prominent of those cases — Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius — took a significant step forward last week, when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Hobby Lobby’s request to expedite the case and hear it en banc (by all judges on the court). Kyle Duncan, the attorney representing the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby against the Department of Health and Human Services, said he expects one or more of these cases to catch the Supreme Court’s attention soon.

“The action of the court on Friday really raises the prominence of what was already a prominent case even higher,” Duncan told HuffPost in a phone interview. “I think there’s a very good chance the Supreme Court takes this up. You’ve got a nationwide mandate and many different plaintiffs all suing at the same time–presumably you’re going to have courts going in different directions, so you’ve got very good conditions for Supreme Court review.”

What’s Next on the Supreme Court’s Docket? Perhaps the HHS Mandate…