Federal Judge in Florida Rules Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional

Fox News Detroit ^ | 1-31-2011 | Fox News

[Marty62]

Federal Judge in Florida Rules Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional

Updated: Monday, 31 Jan 2011, 3:07 PM EST
Published : Monday, 31 Jan 2011, 3:07 PM EST

(NewsCore) - A Florida federal judge ruled Monday in a 26-state challenge to the national health care law that the provision requiring individuals to purchase health insurance by 2014 or suffer a penalty is unconstitutional, Fox News Channel reported.

Excerpt, see myfoxdetroit

[onyx]

Thanks very much for taking the time to read it and present it back to us laymen [laypersons].

Listening to Greta just now, she arrived at your same conclusion --- the judge didn't actually issue an injunction because:

Finally - the injunction: because of the absence of severability and the declaration that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, this is IN EFFECT an injunction ruling.

Thank you again!!!

[KC Burke]

I can hear the Democrats yucking it up over this part:

for there is a long-standing presumption; that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court.

[ScottinVA]

I am thinkin that Obama is about to get some Cowbell today...

Right... upside his punkin' head!

[Danae]

I don’t think it was a mistake, they said they wanted to write it so that it could bever be undone.
Glad they shot themselves in the foot to be honest!

[onyx]

Thanks very much! I love that photo of our most beloved president: President Ronald Wilson Reagan!

[Newton]

Man... zippy has out cartered himself!!! he lost Egypt, now he has his "legacy legislation" smacked down.....what's next? His whole presidency made null and void? I can only hope!!!

this is the best news I've heard in a long time!!! wonder how this affects the repeal and the senate....if it's voided does it still have to go to the senate for repeal?

[redgolum]

We will see how this plays out.

[Marty62]

I think everyone needs to read this: Page 42 of 78 It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congresscan regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compelan otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third partymerely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actualtransaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affectsinterstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest thatCongress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nationwhich began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate givingthe East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold inAmerica would have set out to create a government with the power to force peopleto buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failingto engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would havebeen in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power”[Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only.Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended. See id. at 592(quoting Hamilton at the New York Convention that there would be just cause toreject the Constitution if it would allow the federal government to “penetrate therecesses of domestic life, and control, in all respects, the private conduct ofindividuals”) (Thomas, J., concurring). In Lopez, the Supreme Court struck downthe Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990 after stating that, if the statute were to beseem to carry with it an implicit presumption of at least some sort of preexistingdealing between people or entities. See 1 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of theEnglish Language (4thed. 1773) (defining “intercourse” as “Commerce; exchange”and “Communication”). Furthermore, as one of the amici notes in their brief, theword “regulate” in the Commerce Clause itself would also appear to presupposeaction upon some object or activity that is already extant (see doc. 121 at 4 n.1,citing Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defining “regulate” as “to adjust by rule ormethod” or “to direct”). Thus, a regulator “comes to an existing phenomenon andorders it.” Id.Case No.: 3:10-cv-91-RV/EMT Thanks for the heads up.

[Danae]

*THWAAAAAAAAAAK!*

[Bigun]

Judge begins opinion by citing Federalist papers and ties specific clauses to the 10th Amendment. His introduction frames the case to be about the enumerated federal powers. That is a great setup.

Indeed! In fact, I doubt it could have been any better!

[keat]

Do you know if Judge Roger Vinson (a native of Cadiz, Kentucky according to your post) is a relative of the deceased (Truman era) Chief Justice of SCOTUS Fred Vinson who was also from Kentucky?

I may have left that detail out of my post but hey I can only type so fast.

[ScottinVA]

His whole presidency made null and void? I can only hope!!!

I would take that as a late Christmas gift for the last one, and an early one for the next!!

[onyx]

I think it was 2,700 pages of an unconstitutional, Marxist, power grab, with the attempt to overthow our Republic!

They were sure prideful the night the passed it.

[NYRepublican72]

I don’t think it was a mistake, they said they wanted to write it so that it could bever be undone.

Glad they shot themselves in the foot to be honest!

Either way, arrogance/incompetence thy name is Democrat. They are the party of the jackass afterall.

[Danae]

Hehe thats the best part, no it would not go back to the senate. If SCOTUS rules the same way, and there is great reason to assume they will, then it can go back to congress and they can try to re-write it. But the Law as it stands is now void in its entirety. Which means it may as well not exist. IN ENTIRETY.

WOOT!

[onyx]

BUMP.

[Newton]

yeah, like the stupid provision that won’t let people use their FSA accounts for non prescription medications without a prescription, and added taxes..... that went into effect this year.

[onyx]

WOO-HOO!

[Marty62]

See post 228. Cudos to portnoy.

The issue you raise is why we MUST exact a sworn statement from any Presidential Candidate to SIGN a REPEAL of this Law.

No signee, no electee...period

[Clyde5445]

Now if/when this get to the SCOTUS I don’t think they will look kindly on O after O smacked them last year. The court is still smarting from that.

From what Greta said Vinson’s opinion is air tight therefore the Hight court may just hit back at O.