Posted on 03/24/2010 8:32:12 PM PDT by Hostage
The top prosecutors in Washington and 12 other states filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the landmark health-care legislation minutes after President Obama signed it into law.
In a suit filed in federal court in Tallahassee, Fla., the attorneys general claimed the requirement for all Americans to buy health insurance is unconstitutional — the equivalent of going a step beyond simply regulating automobiles to requiring people to buy a car.
"This bipartisan effort by attorneys general around the country should put the federal government on notice that we will not tolerate the constitutional rights of our citizens and the sovereignty of our states to be trampled on," Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said. "I will pursue this litigation to the highest court, if necessary."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Sanford Levinson, of the University of Texas Law School, said Americans who choose not to purchase health insurance can pay a fine. Congress, he said, clearly has the authority to levy taxes and fines.
“As a technical matter, it’s been set up as a tax,” Levinson said of penalties. “The argument about constitutionality is, if not frivolous, close to it.”
Mark Tushnet, of Harvard University, said the central premise relied upon by the law’s opponents — that Americans who choose not to have insurance aren’t involving themselves in the nation’s commerce — is flawed.
“The failure to have health insurance doesn’t mean the person won’t be consuming health services,” Tushnet said. Once they receive care, he said, they have become involved in commerce and are subject to the federal government’s regulation.
Of course it’s not...but since when do democrats care about the constitution?
There also is some question as to whether courts could hear challenges now, because the requirement to purchase insurance doesn’t become effective until 2014. Courts typically require plaintiffs to show some sort of current injury for which redress is sought.
It is obviously not important to them at all. They are on a roll now, and Katie bsr the door!
The broad extent of the government’s power to regulate interstate commerce has been recognized since Franklin Roosevelt’s administration.
In fact, courts have backed Congress’ ability to regulate under the Commerce Clause, even when the issues might not seem, at first blush, to involve interstate commerce at all.
That is why Roscoe Filburn, a small farmer in Ohio, had to destroy wheat that exceeded production quotas in a 1942 case, even though he was growing wheat for his personal use.
And the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that Congress could prohibit medical marijuana, despite state laws that allow it. The people who had filed suit argued they had not bought the marijuana, but the Supreme Court said the Commerce Clause still applied.
“In both cases,” Yale’s Balkin said, “the Supreme Court said the cumulative effect of your attempt not to participate in the market has an effect on markets — and we can regulate it.”
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
Wouldn’t the forced confiscation of income be enough for redress?
The question of ripeness often arises in cases where the harm asserted by the plaintiff has not yet occurred. Because courts are not permitted to decide merely hypothetical questions or possibilities, the court must determine whether the issues are fit for judicial review. A case is typically considered ripe if it presents a purely legal issue, or if further development of the facts will not render the issue more concrete.
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/ripe
As for standing:
As the parties invoking federal jurisdiction, respondents bear the burden of showing standing by establishing, inter alia, that theyhave suffered an injury in fact, i. e., a concrete and particularized, actual or imminent invasion of a legally protected interest. To survive a summary judgment motion, they must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts to support their claim. Standing is particularly difficult to show here, since third parties, rather than respondents, are the object of the Government action or inaction to which respondents object. Pp. 3-6.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-1424.ZS.html
Neither standing nor ripeness should be an issue.
Paying the fine is clearly cheaper than obtaining the insurance. Wonder what happens if somebody does this ..... and then when something does happen to them, they just simply sign up under the no pre-existing condition arrangement..?
If the SC judges could only read the founding document, this bill would be toast. But, they apparently cannot read.
Why would you NOT do that.....the liklihood of an accident is in an auto accident, and as long as you maintain THAT insurance you’re medically covered...up to a certain point at least.
Thank you. What do you think of Harvard’s Tushnet’s comments in post #3?
It seems that even if a person does not buy health insurance, they perhaps are indeed engaging in commerce but it is not interstate commerce, is it? How can Tushnet think this commerce should be regulated by the federal government?
I am actually most fearful of this comment. Rush Limbaugh talked about how Social Security was challenged and goverment lawyers argued it was a tax and not a segregated pension savings fund. He said the same argument will be attempted to defend Obamacare, “too bad, it’s a tax”.
I have been pro-FairTax for a long time and have a keen interest in following how the 16th amendment can be repealed. Now Iknow it must be repealed because it allows anything the government wants to do based on the power to tax under the 16th amendment.
The reductio ad absurdam on this is the government could coerce literally anything by taxing you if you don’t do it.
“Of course it’s not...but since when do democrats care about the constitution?
“
I would add; When do either party care about the constitution? Why should anyone get more excited about “this” unconstitutional law than the ten’s of thousands of others?
Yes. Rush spoke of the 1935 lawsuit challenge to Social Security.
Said that FDR publicly sold the deal as a retirement savings segregated from the federal budget, but when challenged, FDR’s lawyers went to court and called it a ‘tax’, and won.
I hope a majority of justices will draw the line this time.
I’ll try an answer. Because this one has the potential to reverse the trend.
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