Yesterday the ruling came down from Judge Roger Vinson in a Florida federal court that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and that if the Supreme Court agrees, the whole law must be nullified. This decision puts into stark relief something I have been writing for a long time now, that Justice Anthony Kennedy is the most important man in America.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will no doubt hold the pivotal vote in the case of Obamacare. Whether or not Kennedy can justify the individual mandate to himself will determine its fate for all 308 million Americans.
Judge Vinson has articulated the decision about Obamacare as follows:
“I emphasized once before, but it bears repeating again: this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the Constitutional role of the federal government.”
To read the entire decision click here.
The next question, assuming (and this is a BIG assumption) that the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, is where to go from there. On that point the GOP is working to build its own policy recommendations at the House level. Unfortunately the party leadership has installed Congressman Fred Upton as the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Congressman Upton is the same man that helped write a law that makes incandescent light bulbs illegal. Hope that he will stick to the guidelines of the constitution is slim at best.
In the end, the court proceeding in Florida, and hopefully those in the Supreme Court, should be a guide to future congressmen that they must restrain their legislation to the bounds indicated by the constitution, or face the forced repeal of their legislation through the courts.
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