Pirate's Cove

If I did drugs, I’d want some of what Stephanie Cutter is on

Since the enactment of health reform legislation in March, several state Attorneys General have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.   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.  This is nothing new.   We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act – constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation, and all of those challenges failed.   So too will the challenge to health reform.

Hmm, let’s think: the Constitution (remember that pesky thing, Stephanie?) was set up as a three tier federal system, which gave the courts a way to restrict un-Constitutional legislation. And, if memory serves, it was primarily the Democrats who were against the Civil Rights Act. Damnit, stop with the facts!

This morning, a federal district court in Virginia issued a procedural decision to allow a suit filed by Virginia’s Attorney General to move forward.   The court did not, however, rule on the merits of Virginia Attorney General’s claim that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.   Judge Hudson’s opinion specifically states that the “Court’s mission at this stage is narrow” and that it “does not resolve contests surrounding . . . the facts [or] the merits of a claim.”  The court’s procedural ruling states only that the complaint could not be dismissed at this preliminary stage.

In other words “damn it all, stupid courts are going to drag us into court over something that the majority of Americans are against. Jerks”

Today’s decision merely said that the Virginia Attorney General has standing to challenge the lawsuit – which means that the court has jurisdiction to hear further arguments.  The federal government believes this procedural ruling is in error and conflicts with long-standing and well-established legal precedents – the types of precedents that, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, are designed to preserve the “judiciary’s proper role in our system of government” and to ensure that our courts do not become forums for political debates.

Except, this is EXACTLY what the courts’ role is: to decide Constitutionality.

Now that this preliminary stage has ended, the government fully expects to prevail on the merits.   The Affordable Care Act falls well within Congress’s power to regulate under the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the General Welfare Clause.   As President Reagan’s Solicitor General Charles Fried recently wrote, “the health care law’s enemies have no ally in the Constitution.”

Let me ask you something, Stephanie: how is it Constitutional to make Americans purchase something? A product or service must be purchased across state lines in order for the Commerce Clause to kick in, yet, ObamaCare mandates a fine for a product that has not only not been purchased across state lines, but has not even been purchased. Not to mention that it requires that a specific product be purchased.

The judge in the case did point out that “Never before has the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause been extended this far.”