— The top prosecutors in 13 states — 12 of them Republicans — filed a
lawsuit Tuesday challenging the health care bill minutes after
President
In a suit filed in federal district court in
“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,”
Several noted law professors said there are
significant legal hurdles in establishing the states’ standing to
challenge the health care law and in convincing federal judges that it
violates the Constitution.
mandate that individuals must purchase insurance from private vendors
is unprecedented, because uninsured individuals aren’t participating in
commerce. Many constitutional law experts, however, said that the
health insurance mandate is clearly within
“It would be surprising if the (
“As a technical matter, it’s been set up as a tax,”
Levinson said of the penalties under the health care law. “The argument
about constitutionality is, if not frivolous, close to it,” he said.
“You’d have to imagine that the five conservative Republicans on the
will be willing to invalidate the most important piece of social
legislation in 50 years on the basis of a highly tendentious and
controversial reading of the Constitution.”
“Whenever a congressional statute is being
challenged, the smart money is that the courts will uphold the
statute,” Barnett said. “So whoever is challenging an act of
Barnett added, however, that there have been conspicuous exceptions to the rule when the
In 2000, the high court overturned the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
It invalidated the 1990 Gun Free School Zones Act in 1995. Both
decisions were narrow rulings by a 5-4 majority of justices who said
the congressional bills violated the commerce clause of the
Constitution.
“The question (with the health care measure) will be whether the court will want to give
No Republicans voted for the historic measure to extend health insurance to 32 million Americans when the
McCollum and
a leader of the states’ initiative against the health-care law, are
both running for governor in their states. McCollum is a former
congressman who was involved in the impeachment proceedings against
former President
who has a large lead in polls over other Democratic gubernatorial
candidates in the state, criticized McCollum’s filing of the lawsuit as
a political gimmick.
“Lawsuits and partisanship won’t do anything to help Floridians get better health care,” Sink said. “If
McMaster denied that his participation in the lawsuit was politically motivated.
“The key question involved is whether personal
freedom, state sovereignty and constitutional law will survive America
for future generations,” he said.
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