State AGs File Suit; New Health Care Front Opens in Florida
23rd March 2010
First, it alleges that Congress, in passing the bill, overstepped its authority; that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to pass so sweeping a law;
Second, the plaintiffs allege something we, frankly, didn’t see coming — that the bill deprives the states a “Republican Form of Government,” in violation of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution;
Third, it asserts that in passing the law, the feds have encroached on state sovereignty, in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution;
Fourth, it alleges that the provision of the bill mandating that all Americans purchase health care or be fined constitutes an unconstitutional tax that violates Article I, Sections 2 and 9.
Well, that didn’t take long. Of course, under the old system, whereby the Senators were chosen by the state legislatures rather than the rabble, this health care takeover would have been laughed out of the Senate. (As, indeed, much of the stupider Federal legislation of the past 80 years would have been.)