Florida AG and 12 other states file suit against new health care law

"Attorney General Bill McCollum today filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Labor alleging the Health Care Reform bill signed into law by President Obama this morning is unconstitutional.  The bipartisan lawsuit was joined by 12 Attorneys General and is the first challenge of the new law.  ...The Attorneys General from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho, and South Dakota joined Florida’s lawsuit, filed today in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida."  [source:  http://www.myfloridalegal.com/newsrel.nsf/newsreleases/2426DBDB65C843D7852576EF005DB3A4 ]

Here's a link to the actual complaint that was filed, for those few people who still like to read about the issues before taking sides:  

 http://www.scag.gov/newsroom/pdf/2010/healthcare.pdf

The interesting part will come after the answer has been filed and both sides file briefs, exploring the fault line between the rights of the States under the 10th amendment and the use of the Commerce Clause to justify the individual mandate.  

The 10th amendment:  "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The Commerce Clause:  The United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". 

In first year law school, we spent about half of the year in our Constitutional Law class looking at the evolution of the Commerce Clause, from its modest beginnings to basic interstate trade issues, to the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt's Court Packing plan, and the "switch in time that saved nine," where two justices who had voted with the conservative court switched their votes and created a new majority which became more deferential to Acts of Congress.  The reach of the Commerce Clause broadened in the 1960's for use in attacking segregation in the South - and reached its peak when the Court found that the federal Civil Rights laws reached all the way in to the kitchen at Ollie's Barbecue, a family owned restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in barbecued meats and homemade pies, because of "meat that it bought from a local supplier who had procured it from outside the State".  That was the commerce that was being regulated:  hot dogs and buns that "moved in commerce" and arrived at Ollie's Barbecue.  

It certainly led to the right result - seating and service for blacks in all restaurants in the South, but through the back door.  For those who are result driven, and don't care about the path traveled to get there, that is all that matters.  For those who view the Constitution as an agreement between the states and the federal government as to what rights they each have, and a check on government power, the use of the Commerce Clause as a trump card, to be played any time the Federal government wishes to legislate, seems to be a usurpation of rights reserved to the States.  Thoughtful people can hold either view.

Reading the pleadings, the briefs, the opinions, is interesting perhaps for lawyers.  We were trained to think that issues like these should be resolved based on reason and the rule of law.  But the loud and angry mob on both sides of this debate will insist that the only correct result is the one they have emotionally invested in ... and no matter which way the case is decided, there will be a mob to launch personal attacks on the judges who make the decision.   And I know many lawyers who are more comfortable in the mob than in the legal arguments.  A sad commentary on the tenor of our public debate, where we have largely lost the capacity for civil discourse, and respect for our government and its institutions.  We are poorer as a result.