While the federal Supreme Court has upheld a case questioning Puerto Rico’s exclusion from Supplemental Social Security, U.S. President Joe Biden could still drop his appeal.
In essence, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the federal government appealed the decision of the First Circuit of Boston Appeals in the case of Vaello-Madero which ruled that Puerto Rican residents could not be excluded from the Supplemental Social Security (SSI) benefit. Although President Biden was expected to drop this appeal, yesterday the Supreme Court accepted the case and it is now in his hands whether to validate the First Circuit ruling.
For the Puerto Rican lawyer John Mudd, The Biden administration can still drop the case before the Supreme Court. “You can still remove it under the rule 46 of the rules of the United States Supreme Court, “the lawyer said in a telephone interview with Subway. “Rule 46 has no term says that as long as there is the certiorari anant [pueden retirar el caso]”, Added.
Since Biden took over the presidency on January 20, several country politicians have called for the president to withdraw the legal appeal before the Supreme Court. If the case is withdrawn, it would have the effect of validating the decision of the First Circuit in Boston, so that Puerto Rican residents could claim the right to this SSI benefit.
Mudd argued that in addition to this scenario, the Vaello-Madero case has several possible scenarios in the federal Supreme Court.
The lawyer argued that one possibility is that the top U.S. judicial forum will confirm and validate the First Circuit decision. However, he opined that, based on previous statistics, this result could be uphill. “The decision of the Circuit can be confirmed. Now, 70% of the time the Supreme Court issues a certiorari 70% of the time the decision of the Appeal is revoked, “said Mudd.
The lawyer also opined that the federal Supreme Court could also overturn the decision of the Appeal in Boston based on past decisions of this judicial forum in cases of Harris v. Rosary i Califano v. Towers, Which justify different treatment to residents of Puerto Rico under the territorial clause.
In turn, he warned that the decision of the federal Supreme Court case could have repercussions on the litigation surrounding the central government’s debt adjustment plan. Last week, the Fiscal Control Board announced that it had reached an agreement with the country’s bondholders and they are expected to present the adjustment plan before March 8th. “If the Circuit’s decision is upheld, they can’t discriminate, this creates 1:00 terrible dislocation for the Adjustment Plan because the Plan doesn’t consider Puerto Rico to be entitled to a lot of funds it would be entitled to if the it is decided favorably for Puerto Rico, “he said.
He also commented that it is possible that the federal Supreme Court could assess whether to revoke the Island Cases. These court rulings have concluded that the United States Constitution does not apply in its entirety to unincorporated territories, such as Puerto Rico.
The lawyer also opined that the Biden administration may have been slow to drop the case to see the possibilities of establishing the benefit through legislation in Congress. In this way, according to Mudd, Biden could be awarded this legislation as a political triumph and offer him more chances to have the vote of Puerto Ricans in the United States.
Fund give the case of Vaello-Madero
The lawsuit was initially filed by the U.S. government in a recovery action against José Luis Vaello Madero.
He lived in New York from 1985 to 2013, where he received SSI disability benefit. The man then moved to Puerto Rico in 2013, but continued to receive the Social Security deposit into his New York bank account until 2016. The U.S. government initiated a recovery action. of money against before the Federal District Court, but then asked for the dismissal of the same.
The U.S. government asked for the case to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, alleging that there were still administrative lawsuits that Vaello-Madero could exhaust, but the judge Gustavo Gelpí denied this dismissal petition and the Boston Court of Appeals upheld the determination later.
Prior to the determination of the First Circuit, the local government presented itself as a friend of the court. At that time, the governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, Weeks after she was promoted to executive office, she expressed that the intention to remove the right to Puerto Ricans was discriminatory.
The Circuit of Appeals concluded that “the exclusion of Puerto Rican residents (from the right to Supplemental Social Security) is not rationally related to a government interest.” The case in Boston was attended to by the judges Juan Torruella, Jeffrey Howard i Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson.
Then the Trump administration turned to the Supreme.