first want to address this one question for each of you and i'll start from left to right with walter dellinger. how important is this supreme court case? walter? >> well, you know, the answer to that is twofold, charlie. because it would be of enormous consequence if the court were to told that this regulation that affects one seventh of the economy is outside the scope of congress's power to regulate commerce among the states. that would be, in my view, an extraordinary holding. if the court holds-- as a couple conservative judges did below, like judge silverman and judge sutton that of course it's a regulation of commerce or as others have argued it's a regulation of inevitable commerce of people that will engage in health care. it's a very limited ruling and i don't think it would be of great consequence. it's only the thought that the court might strike this down that makes it seem like a big case. >> rose: jeffrey toobin? how big a deal is this? >> epic, awesome, enormous, huge. >> rose: (laughs) >> really, this is the biggest case involving the power of the federal government since the n

walter dellinger, randy barnett, thank you. online we have extensive coverage of the health care reform law and you can listen to the audio of today's argument or read the transcript. we have interviews with people who traveled to washington to voice their opinions-- pro and con-- on the law. plus, a post from susan dentzer on what happens if the individual mandate is struck down or takes effect and marcia coyle's primer for tomorrow's session will be posted in the morning. that's all at www.newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: now to syria >> ifill: now, to syria. the united nations estimates today that the death toll has reached 9,000 as the government there continues to uproot opposition forces. today president bashar assad toured the city of homs, the scene of some of the worst fighting. john ray of independent television news reports. >> reporter: the scene was carefully crafted for state television. among the crowd a weeping man to greet president assad this was the long-time rebel stronghold of be be am. government forces have re

walter dellinger served as solicitor general in the clinton administration. he filed a brief before the court on behalf of democrats in congress. randy barnett has helped shape the argument against the mandate and filed amicus briefs in the lower courts. he's arofessor at the geortown university law center. welcome to both of you. >> thank you. >> brown: since you were both there, what jumped out at you. >> unlike yesterday where it looked like the court was pretty unanimous on the question of whether the anti-injunction act was going to bother phlegm hearing the merits of the case, today it looked like the court was very equally divided. i think you had four justs who were training most of their fire for example, on the government's side and not as much fire on our side. we had four justices training most of their fire on our side and not all that much on the government side and that just looked like a dwrided cour rather than the court that yesterday seemedretty much on the same page. >> brown: walter dellinger? >> i was struck by the fact that both chief j

the first statement will be made by mort rosenberg, followed by doug, david rifgen and walter dellinger. after the formal presentation, i'll give the panel a chance to question one another and i'm sure we will see a spirited debate from that point. then we go on to questions of the audience. so keep track of things you don't think have actually been covered and we'll try to address those. many thanks for being here. i hope you find this panel, as i think you will, informative. let me start then, with an introduction for mort. all i have to do is find tepaper and i'll sit down. >> what i want to say about mort, he is an expert and has been a good many years in the appointments issue. he was a member of the congressional research service and he was there during one of the periods when the crs had its most important business dealing with appointments. that is during the watergate period for richard nixon. and his opinions, there were nine of them during that period, were extremely important in establishing some of the basic ideas for how we look today at the appointments process. he's also

okay, our final speaker is walter dellinger. he heads the harvard supreme court and appellate practice clinic and is a visiting professor of law at harvard university. after serving in early 1993 as an advisor to the president on constitutional issues, mr. devlinger was nominated by the president to be assistant attorney general. he was confirmed by the senate in october, 1993. 24 this was not a recess appointment, apparently, and was also head of the office of legal council. walter was then the acting solicitor general from 1996 to 1997 term of the u.s. supreme court. he's published articles for journals, including the yale law review and his written for the new york times, washington times, news week, and the london times. walter, the floor is yours. >> thank you so much, peter. and thanks to the american enterprise institute for putting together such a thor reexplication of this issue. it is really extraordinary that such a simple clause could provoke such complexity of argumentation. and i'll come to that simple clause in a

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and i'll give credit to walter dellinger for this thought by think it's correct, if it were to do so, i think the next day they would be unanimously passed in both houses and signed by the president statute of exempting the statute from the injunction act in the case would be back in the court before you can finish reading the many lines of opinions that have been issued by the court the day before. so i think in terms of reality, that's not going to be much of a narrator, even if the court were to decide for some technical reason, which i just don't think it's going to. >> i largely agree with that but i would note it's a little unusual to claim that the definition of a tax under the anti-injection act is actually narrower than the definition under constitution the traditional view adopted by the lower courts, including the only one which has said that the anti-injunction act applies, is that the anti-injunction act is at least as broad as the constitutional definition, and possibly broader. i think the whole point, the whole purpose was not to make it hard for taxpayers to come ahea