Stuart M. Gerson, Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care & Life Sciences practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, and New York offices, was quoted in Law360, in “How Trump’s Judges Are Handling Abortion Rights and ACA,” by Jeff Overley. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
President Donald Trump’s most prominent judicial picks are on the cusp of casting pivotal votes in colossal cases over reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act. But many of his judges have already joined important rulings against abortion and the ACA, possibly presaging what’s ahead for the politically charged areas of health care litigation.
The impact has become increasingly clear as the president’s imprint on the federal bench has become increasingly deep, reaching 200 confirmations on Wednesday. And that impact is perhaps unsurprising, given that an expectation of antipathy for abortion rights and the ACA are among the closest things to litmus tests for the judicial nominees of a Republican president. …
“It is certainly true that in this area of reproductive rights, the Trump appointees are pushing the envelope,” Epstein Becker Green member Stuart Gerson, who has been a high-ranking U.S. Department of Justice attorney in Republican and Democratic administrations, told Law360. …
It’s also possible that in six months the White House will be preparing for a new occupant who will approach health care much differently than Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is vowing to “build on the Affordable Care Act,” which could set the stage for future legal challenges decided by Trump appointees.
There’s a real possibility, Gerson noted, that Biden as president would be unable to move ambitious health care legislation through Congress and resort to regulatory actions — something of a bête noire for many younger, conservative judges who are widely viewed as suspicious of the “administrative state.”
“I hesitate to bet on elections, especially in view of the one we had in 2016,” Gerson said. “But if Trump is defeated and Biden comes in, that’s where the magnitude of these Trump-era judges is really going to be felt.”
