VA Judge Strikes down ObamaCare Mandate as Unconstitutional

This is a serious setback for ObamaCare & its constitutional law professor POTUS:

Great name for a judge also (Henry Hudson).

Here is the 42-page ruling: http://global.nationalreview.com/dest/2010/12/13/4f41b71ebfb74ab3c4fd5d896770b6c0.pdf

Judge Hudson’s opinion is particularly valuable because it dispatches the White House’s carousel of rationalizations for its unprecedented intrusions. The Justice Department argued that the mandate is justified by the Commerce Clause because the decision not to purchase insurance has a substantial effect on interstate commerce because everybody needs medical care eventually. And if not that, then it’s permissible under the broader taxing power for the general welfare; and if not that, then it’s viable under the Necessary and Proper clause; and if not that, well, it’s needed to make the overall regulatory scheme function.

But as Judge Hudson argues, the nut of the case is the Commerce Clause. Justice can’t now claim that the mandate is "really" a tax when the bill itself imposes what it calls a "penalty" for failing to buy insurance and says the power to impose the mandate is vested in interstate commerce. Recall that President Obama went on national television during the ObamaCare debate to angrily assert that the mandate "is absolutely not a tax increase."

Moreover, Judge Hudson says that no court has ever "extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market."

Liberals are attacking Judge Hudson because he was appointed by George W. Bush, but his ruling is relatively narrow. He didn’t strike down the rest of ObamaCare even though it lacked a severability clause, and he didn’t enjoin the law’s implementation pending appeal. His opinion also doesn’t touch Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s long-shot claim that his state’s "health freedom" law can nullify an act of Congress. In fact, federal laws that are constitutional are supreme under the 10th Amendment.
Yesterday liberals were crowing that even if the mandate is eventually declared illegal, it’s no big deal because the rest of ObamaCare’s new system would remain intact. Yet they’ve argued for years that the mandate is essential to health reform, because the mandate is at the heart of the regulatory machine. ObamaCare without a mandate would mean individuals wouldn’t have to pay into a system until they were sick, driving up costs even faster and ruining what’s left of health insurance markets.

While Judge Hudson’s ruling is the first to declare part of the law unconstitutional, more than 20 state attorneys general and the National Federation of Independent Business are also suing in Florida. Oral arguments will be heard on Thursday in that case, which we think is the strongest constitutional challenge to the law.

As the Virginia case shows, ObamaCare really does stretch the Commerce Clause to the breaking point. The core issue is whether the federal government can order individuals to do anything the political class decides it wants them to do. The stakes couldn’t be higher for our constitutional order.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703727804576017672495623838.html?mod=googlenews_wsj