Breaking: Federal Judge Allows Virginia ObamaCare Lawsuit To Continue

He refused a motion to dismiss.

A judge on Monday refused to dismiss the state of Virginia's challenge to President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law, a setback that will force his administration to mount a lengthy legal defense of the overhaul effort.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson refused to dismiss the state's lawsuit which argues the law's requirement that its residents have health insurance was unconstitutional...

I don't know if this report is as sanguine as it seems -- this is a novel question, and a big, important one; it would have been unseemly for any judge to dismiss it out of hand, as if there is no argument remaining whatsoever about the power of the federal government to puppet-master citizens' lives.

It should be borne in mind that the judge who stayed the Arizona law feigned skepticism about the federal government's case in her questions. (Something I had guessed.)

Pete Stark was asked about constitutional limits on federal power, and he offered a very clear statement about the "mainstream" Democratic view of that -- such limits simply do not exist.

It's pretty astonishing to hear that put so plainly. The Democratic Party certainly doesn't believe the Constitution has no power to restrain. They support the Constitution blocking lots of laws (abortion the most important among them).

It's an odd thing -- the Constitution has so very much to say about a procedure never mentioned in it, and nothing at all to say about subjects it mentions quite frequently and prominently -- states' rights, taxation, enumerated powers, powers reserved for the people, seizing of property without just compensation. All of those clauses are apparently dead, while invisible clauses are potent.

posted by Ace at 11:59 AM

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