President Obama addresses the Families USA 16th Annual Health Action Conference in Washington on Friday. Families USA is an consumer advocacy health care organization. (Associated Press)Quoting James Madison and Thomas Jefferson as authorities, a federal judge in Florida ruled Monday that Congress breached the Constitution when it passed the health care law, dealing the broadest rejection yet to President Obama‘s signature initiative.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson‘s ruling is the second to find thatCongress exceeded its powers by requiring Americans to buy insurance, known as the “individual mandate.” But the judge went further, saying that if the individual mandate is unconstitutional, so is the entire law.
“The individual mandate is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution,” Judge Vinson wrote, warning that to allow Congress to use the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution to justify it would “effectively remove all limits on federal power.”
Judge Vinson said Mr. Obama can continue to implement the law while the case winds its way through the appeals courts toward an eventualSupreme Court showdown.
The Obama administration vowed to appeal, and White House officials called the ruling “surpassingly curious reading,” questioning JudgeVinson‘s references to the Boston Tea Party and his discussion of the Founding Fathers. One senior administration official, briefing reporters Monday evening on the condition of anonymity, said the references toMadison, Jefferson and other Founders were “a mark of the weakness of the other side’s argument.”
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Florida ruled President Obama’s health care law unconstitutional Monday. (Associated Press)“This is an opinion that just doesn’t rest on anything like a conventional constitutional analysis,” the official said.
Some policy analysts argued Monday that while the judge allowed the federal government to continue to implement the law, states could choose to halt their own efforts to implement it. But theadministration doubted states would take that step.
Still, the ruling could boost Republicans’ efforts to force the Senate to hold a vote on a bill to repeal the law. On Monday, Senate Republicans announced that all 47 of their members have signed on to that bill.
Judge Vinson earlier ruled against the government‘s claim that it was using the broad constitutional taxing power to enact health care. That earlier ruling meant the crux of Monday’s decision came down to whether enacting health care could be done under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
The government argued that health care is an interstate market, and since every person will eventually require health care, the decision not to buy health care is an economic decision. Given that, the governmentsaid, it can act.
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