You gotta love conservatives who for years railed against judicial activism as a form of legal tyranny by fiat. But on the very day a lower court federal judge ruled Obamacare unconstitutional, the skies are blue and no longer falling.
Never mind a pet conservative political cause trumping a legal premise supported by a concept of the 10th Amendment and related articles of the U.S. Constitution. I haven’t seen such glee and celebration among Republicans since the night Ronald Reagan was elected president.
In his decision, Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., concluded that the insurance mandate was so “inextricably bound” to other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that its unconstitutionality required the invalidation of the entire law.
Among the chorus of progressive Democrats saying the decision was politically motivated now that the ball has bounced to the other side was Stephanie Cutter, an assistant to the president: “A plain case of judicial overreaching.”
The judge’s 78-page legal opinion as described in this rewrite offered by the New York Times:
Judge Vinson’s opinion hangs on a series of Supreme Court decisions that have defined the limits of the Commerce Clause by granting Congress authority to regulate “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.”
The plaintiffs characterized the insurance requirement as an unprecedented effort to regulate inactivity because citizens would be assessed an income tax penalty for failing to buy a product.
Justice Department lawyers responded that a choice not to obtain health insurance was itself an active decision that, taken in the aggregate, shifted the cost of caring for the uninsured to hospitals, governments and privately insured individuals.
In his decision, Judge Vinson wrote, “It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause.” If Congress has such power, he continued, “it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted.”
“So do the federal judges,” shouts the constitutional purists from the ultra right. And the Supreme Court in particular.
While we hear the cheers and catcalls over this latest decision on the ladder to the Supreme Court, dug deep into the trenches are the purists, the advocates of strict almost bizarre literal interpretation of our nation’s guiding document, the people who do the grunt work under titles of patriots.
From J.B. Williams, managing editor of The Patriot News:
…There is no way that our founding fathers intended for the new free nation they formed, to be ruled by a nine member oligarchy appointed to their position for life, on the basis of their individual political leanings.
Williams’ group is a loud advocate for states’ rights and nullification of federal laws they say are not enumerated in the constitution. At least they recognize like most Americans the Supreme Court in liberal and conservative factions as most court observers and not gods from Olympus blind to the world around them digesting only legal pig iron.
Read into it what you want, but the four separate lower federal court decisions challenging sections of Obamacare is seen as a scorecard at 2-2 with Republican appointed judges rejecting and Democratic judges upholding.
The Patriot News people are not only tenthers but Article III Section II purists arguing only the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in suits filed by the states against the feds.
Which brings us back to Monday’s Obamacare court decision, which the Justice Department promises, will be appealed.
Writes Williams:
But guess what? The suits filed in the lower federal courts are without proper jurisdiction, as Article III – Section II of the constitution clearly states that only the US Supreme Court has any jurisdiction on the matter.
Is it even possible that throughout 26 states, there is not one governor, legislator or lawyer who was aware of Article III original jurisdiction, making any suit in any lower court moot?
Say what?
The explanation:
…The federal government use(s) lower federal judges to acquire rulings which it was unlikely to acquire at the Supreme Court. The lower federal courts have no jurisdiction in any case in which the state or the federal government is a party. However…
• The Fed can get lower court judges to side with the Fed by arguing the false interpretation of federal supremacy and federal judges very much enjoy that unconstitutional power on their own bench.
• The Fed can handcuff the states for years in appeals by suing the state in lower federal courts instead of the US Supreme Court, which according to the Constitution, has original jurisdiction in such cases.
• The Fed can usually rely on federal appeals courts to uphold the rulings of lower federal courts, also aligned with the false notion of federal supremacy.
• It keeps the US Supreme Court out of the equation until the federal mandate has taken full effect and is all but impossible to reverse.
Never say I didn’t give these guys their day in court.
(Photo courtesy Pensacola News)
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.