Judge rules against Unconstitutional Health Care Law

[Yankeefan2009]

Virginia Suit Against Health Care Law Moves Forward

A federal judge has refused to block a challenge to the Obama administration’s health care law brought by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Alexa Welch Edlund/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated Press
Ken T. Cuccinelli II, Virginia's attorney general, is one of 21 state officials who are fighting a federal health care law.


The administration had asked the judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court, to dismiss the challenge by Virginia’s attorney general, Ken T. Cuccinelli II.

Mr. Cuccinelli had argued that Congress, in passing a measure that requires people to buy insurance or face a penalty, exceeded its limits under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and tax powers. Mr. Cuccinelli had also argued that the federal law violated a state law, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, which declares that residents cannot be forced to buy health insurance.

Mr. Cuccinelli is one of 21 state officials fighting the health care law, and this is the first ruling by a federal court on the important question of whether states have the standing to sue.

Monday’s opinion does not address the merits of the health care law. It has no direct effect on the other state challenges, but it may influence the other judges.

In its briefs, the federal government argued that “this court would have to make new law and ignore decades of settled precedent” and “step beyond the proper role of the judiciary” to claim jurisdiction and block the legislation. Case after case has shown that the government’s powers to regulate interstate commerce and to create taxes reach far.

The federal government argued that Virginia had no standing to sue over the law, and that it had not stated a case it could win.

Judge Hudson, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, disagreed. In a 32-page opinion, he wrote that the law “radically changes the landscape of health insurance coverage in America.”

The case, he wrote, “raises a host of complex constitutional issues”; the notion that the government’s authority could include “the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product” was new to the federal courts, the judge concluded, and so the state’s protest could not be dismissed outright.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler, played down the ruling as “merely a procedural decision by the court to allow this case to move forward,” and predicted that the law would withstand court scrutiny.

“We are confident that the health care reform statute is constitutional and that we will ultimately prevail,” Ms. Schmaler said in a statement.

Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic consultant working with the White House, posted an entry on the White House blog attacking the opponents of the law.

“Having failed in the legislative arena, opponents of reform are now turning to the courts in an attempt to overturn the work of the democratically elected branches of government,” Ms. Cutter wrote. “This is nothing new. We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.”

“All of those challenges failed,” she said. “So, too, will the challenge to health reform.”

In a statement, Mr. Cuccinelli said he was “pleased” with the decision.

Randy Barnett, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who was an early critic of the health care law on constitutional grounds, said, “This decision establishes the seriousness of the constitutional challenges to the individual mandate.” Lower courts, he added, “should be striking the law down” until the challenges reach the Supreme Court, which alone has the authority “to expand Congress’s power, if it wants to.”

Jack Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School who has expressed skepticism over challenges to the health care law, argued on his blog that “it is still very likely that the Supreme Court will uphold the individual mandate,” if the case gets that far.

“This is the very beginning of the very beginning of a process that will go on for a long time,” Mr. Balkin said in an interview.

Judge Hudson, in his opinion, recognized that the ruling was narrow and preliminary, and that there was much more to come. “While this court’s decision may set the initial judicial course of the case,” he wrote, “it will certainly not be the final word.”

We really need this Unconstitutional Obamacare law to be overturned. Not only is it bankrupting us, it's clearly overstepping the rights of the individuals.

[Rhiannon]

Since when has overstepping our rights been an issue for the Obama Admin? They have been doing that little pieces at a time since this whole game began... one little shred at a time so we dont notice the big hole its creating.

[Yankeefan2009]

Since when has overstepping our rights been an issue for the Obama Admin? They have been doing that little pieces at a time since this whole game began... one little shred at a time so we dont notice the big hole its creating.

Agreed. That's why I think it's funny the double standard they have... they won't even let the people of Arizona defend themselves from illegal invaders.

[nogods]

let's not forget that many district court judges and court of appeals judges had ruled that the 2nd amendment did not apply to the states - and then the SCOTUS corrected them.

[Riven37]

If this case is lost there goes Federalism as we know it arego America as we know it. This will mean that the Federal Govt will no longer need to have elections and that Obama becomes our didtactor for life and everyone in Congress and the House also members for life. People better wake the Fu*K up !!

[Effigy]

How's the Harley goin'?