"I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them."
--Jim Braddock (Cinderella Man)
Two months after refusing a summary judgment in favor of a ruling, a Richmond District Court judge has ruled the health care bill unconstitutional.
In his written opinion, the judge indicated that the central issue involves an individual's right to choose to participate. The healthcare law used the Commerce Clause as justification for requiring individuals to purchase insurance. The judge, however, stated that the Commerce Clause does not give government the right to 'compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity on the private market.'
As the judge indicated, however, this ruling is but the first step toward the high court for the healthcare law.
It's a positive sign, however, as there is at least one judge out there who refuses to let the Commerce Clause serve as carte blanche for ever increasing State power.
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10 comments:
Just wanted to point out that there have been other federal rulings that have upheld the constitutionality of the law. I think we all knew this was destined from the SCOTUS.
http://gawker.com/5713041/judge-who-ruled-health-care-reform-unconstitutional-owns-piece-of-gop-consulting-firm
The judge owns a chunk of a GOP consulting firm...
Ad hominem ad nauseum...Would be more interested to learn of the problems you have w/ his argument.
What other federal rulings have upheld constitutionality?
Another VA ruling and MI ruling.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43289.html
http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/12/second-ruling-upholds-health-clause/
I agree with the overuse of ad hominem in our current world, but you seem to be interested in the influence of SIGs on the system. This guy seems to have a vested interest (literally) in the outcome of this. If he funds a company that lobbied against health care reform, I have a hard time having faith in his decision. It seems to me that he would already have made up his mind before the case ever entered his courtroom.
Not to mention that the lawyer who brought the lawsuit paid $9k to that same company for services this year. The whole thing is stinky and it goes far beyond some sort of digging for a distant connection.
I am certainly no constitutional expert, but I have no problem with the law as it is, so I suppose I reject the judge's ruling entirely. It seems to me that the Commerce clause covers this.
You fail to mention, of course, the political backgrounds of the other two judges that could have influenced their rulings...
Have we not established by now that everyone has special interests? Thus, the only way to guard against SIG influences is to make the system impervious to them.
Would be interested in your thoughts on precisely how the Commerce clause 'covers' the healthcare law.
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
~James Madison
Matt,
If you'd like to research the backgrounds of the other judges, feel free. This is about one judge. One ruling, not every other ruling in the history of the country. It matters not at all to me whether you consider everyone to have an interest, this is a case where the judge who ruled on this case has very obvious reasons to have his objectivity questioned.
I suspect you don't care about that because his ruling falls into line with what you believe should happen.
You might want to read this, unless you want to take the ad hominem approach to WaPo by dismissing it as "the liberal media."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121306216_2.html
Something you might want to consider from the article:
But the judge did not take two key actions that Virginia had sought. He ruled that the unconstitutionality of the mandate did not spill over to the rest of the law. And he did not grant an injunction, which would have halted the government's work to implement the law, reasoning that none of those steps "are irreversible" because most provisions don't go into effect until 2014.
I get it, the SIG issue only matters when it adversely impacts you. Fair and balanced...
As noted in the article, the legal focus so far seems to involve whether the Federal govt can require individuals to purchase health insurance. Perhaps this is the focus because if this part gets tossed, most of the law comes apart.
The larger issue, of course, is government's involvement in the health care space. The legal argument in favor of it is largely based on precedents--social security, medicare, etc.
All of these precedents were contested in the past and legally justified based on, you guessed it, the 'clauses.' Perhaps before this is all over, we'll wake up as a people and reverse them all.
If we don't, the laws of economics will surely do it for us.
Hopefully the FL case will bring some of the other (e.g., Tenth Amendment) issues out.
That's funny -- I was thinking the same thing -- SIGs only become important/immoral when they tilt the opinion away from yours.
We'll see. It will play out and end up in the SCOTUS, which I think we knew from the beginning.
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