The New Republic

And my hitherto-intelligent Pennsylvania Attorney General has joined his fellow Republican yahoos from Virginia, Florida, Utah and elsewhere in a feckless lawsuit to challenge this bill in federal court on laughable Constitutional grounds (including, of course, the 10th Amendment). Of course, said Attorney General is running for governor this year and I actually considered voting for him given the dysfunctional state of Pennsylvania politics and its state Democratic Party. I have taken the liberty of writing his office that, in light of his decision to waste taxpayer money on a lawsuit that would have been laughed out of moot court in law school, I will never vote for him and will urge everyone I know not to vote for him for governor.

- wildboy

March 23, 2010 at 1:36pm

As Joe Biden just said: "This is a big fucking deal."

- blackton

March 23, 2010 at 1:43pm

I have to wonder how these lawsuits from several state attorneys general will play out: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_re_us/us_health_overhaul_lawsuit

- tnmats

March 23, 2010 at 4:56pm

Tnmats, IMHO they will be thrown out of court pretty quickly -- primarily on the grounds that they are not ripe for constitutional review, since the individual mandate doesn't even kick in until 2014. Therefore, no one will be affected by the purportedly unconstitutional legislation until then and the federal courts are not in the business of giving advisory opinions on laws if no one has been harmed. Another possible grounds to deny the suit is that the AG's and the states they represent are not aggrieved parties, since they are challenging a provision that would apply to uninsured individuals and not to states. I wouldn't be surprised if the Supreme Court refuses to grant review to a ruling on ripeness or standing grounds. If and when federal courts actually get to the substance of these arguments, they will not fare much better. First, the individual mandate is set up as a penalty to be collected like a tax, which puts it within Congress's powers under Article I, Section 8 to impose taxes for the general welfare. Second, the Congress's power under Article I, Section 8 to regulate interstate commerce would permit it to impose individual mandates as a way to regulate the national marketplace for health insurance. The commerce clause power would also permit the government to penalize people for refusing to engage in interstate commerce where the government has determined that a failure to so engage would affect interstate commerce -- as was the case in Wickard v. Filburn in 1942, where the farmer was penalized for refusing to destroy surplus crops on his own farm because this affected the overall market for farm produce, or the cases upholding the 1964 Civil Rights Act where private motel and restaurant owners who refused to serve black customers were penalized because their discrimination affected the markets for food and lodging. And the 10th Amendment argument is thoroughly bogus -- while some decisions in the late 1990s and 2000 suggested that the 10th Amendment imposed limitations on Congress's ability to base criminal law on the commerce clause (like the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Violence Against Women Act), the 2005 case of Gonzales v. Raichel held that federal law prohibiting the sale and use of marijuana trumped any contrary 10th Amendment argument in favor of California's law permitting state residents to use medical marijuana for their own purposes. Of the seven justices who were in the majority in Gonzales, five are still on the Court (Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kennedy, Scalia) and another (Souter) has been replaced with a justice (Sotomayor) who would almost certainly see things the same way he did. My gut tells me that only Thomas would rule against the health care legislation.

- wildboy

March 23, 2010 at 5:14pm

"For all passengers on Ideology Air, boarding for the flight to Costa Rica has now begun. All conservatives on this flight please proceed at once to Gate 219 . . ."

- ironyroad

March 23, 2010 at 5:56pm

Jonathan, Once upon a time, I was a supporter of a Presidential candidate named John Edwards. I'm in recovery now, of course, but Chris Good's recent post at the Atlantic reminded me of the role Edwards played in making health care reform into a major issue in the 2008 campaign. I wonder what you make of Good's comments. For myself, although it is clear that this great achievement belongs to Obama, Pelosi, and to many others in Congress and the Administration, who have worked hard over the past year or so to bring this legislation into effect, it might be a partial vindication for those of us who mistakenly embraced the Edwards candidacy to remember why it was that we were drawn to it in the first place. Neil http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/provocation-of-the-day-thank-john-edwards-for-health-care-reform/37847/

- purcellneil

March 24, 2010 at 8:36am

wildboy, would you mind if I copied your post? I have some friends that need the reality check.

- zardoz67

March 24, 2010 at 11:42am

Zardoz, feel free to do so. Always happy to do my part to discourage junk lawsuits!

- wildboy

March 24, 2010 at 12:40pm

I'm sure I'm not the first to point out the irony that people who usually decry "frivolous" lawsuits that waste taxpayer money are cheering on these lawsuits. And of course here the waste is double -- cost of attorney general resources and court resources. Oh, and then there's the hypocrisy of the people who whine about using the courts to circumvent democratic outcomes (laws approved by a legislature) doing that very thing here. And of course it wouldn't be judicial activism for a judge to set aside years of relevant precedent to let these cases go forward. (It's only judicial activism when you don't like the outcome.)

- shellski

March 24, 2010 at 3:24pm

Thanks, it's now up on my Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&suggest¬e_id=375601369650#!/note.php?note_id=375601369650

- zardoz67

March 24, 2010 at 3:30pm

yeah wildboy, that is great, I just wish people in the media had enough ability to point out the things you did to these grandstanding attorneys general.

- blackton

March 24, 2010 at 5:58pm