Yesterday’s ruling by a D.C. Circuit Court panel will have little (if any) effect on how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Obamacare. But it provides further evidence that the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose Obamacare shouldn’t entrust this nation-defining issue to the courts.
Of course, that’s not to say that we shouldn’t hope for a favorable verdict. There are
six ways that the Supreme Court could presumably rule on Obamacare. It could (1) let all of it stand, ruling that the individual mandate is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce; (2) let all of it stand, ruling that the individual mandate isn’t really a mandate but a tax, which is justified under Congress’s taxing power; (3) strike down the individual mandate but let everything else stand; (4) strike down the individual mandate and also the “guaranteed issue” and “community rating” provisions that rely on the mandate to function; (5) strike it all down; or (6) decide that the 26 states who claim that Obamacare is unconstitutional lack standing or the Court lacks jurisdiction.
Two of the three judges on the Circuit Court panel chose the first option, while the other dissented from the panel’s opinion and chose the sixth. In going with the option #1, the circuit court panel essentially declared that Congress not only has the power to regulate commerce but to compel it. It has the power to require Americans to buy products of the federal government’s choosing — at least when the government (and the judiciary) thinks that the market in which the product is to be purchased “is a rather unique one” that “virtually everyone will enter” or else cause “disproportionate harm” by not entering. In addition to sanctioning a truly frightening level of federal power, how’s that for an exact standard of constitutional adjudication?
Above all, the D.C. ruling serves as a welcome reminder that the coalition of Republicans and independents (and a smattering of Democrats) who oppose Obamacare shouldn’t rely on the courts — and ultimately the Court — to take care of the matter. Relying on the Court is like rolling one die and hoping that the either a 4 or a 5 comes up (as those are the only two of the six potential rulings that would provide an even remotely satisfactory result). (Number 3, which entails having the Court strike down the individual mandate but nothing else, wouldn’t reduce the importance of a political resolution whatsoever.)
There’s only one sure way to spare ourselves and our offspring from Obamacare — and that’s to repeal it. Maximizing the chances that this will happen requires having a Republican nominee who’ll make repeal a centerpiece of the campaign and can speak persuasively about why Obamacare is the worst piece of legislation in any of our lifetimes. It will require that nominee to win. And it will require the newly inaugurated GOP president to show somewhere near as much willpower to get repeal legislation through the Senate as President Obama showed in imposing Obamacare on the country.
Victory lies through the political process. Far too much is at stake to rely on the Court.
We should not acquiesce in accepting the results of empiricism/legal positivism riding rough-shot over constitutional jurisprudence. This kind of thinking is putrid to a constitutional republic:
"But to tell the truth, those limits are not apparent to us, either because the power to require the entry into commerce is symmetrical with the power to prohibit or condition commercial behavior, or because we have not yet perceived a qualitative limitation."
Constitutional limits are not wherever those with robes paid by the state find them to be! They're not open to empirical analysis about what needs a "national solution", but are subject to the rational scrutiny of natural law! If they can't "see" a limit to commerce clause authority, the only accomplishment of these supposedly high-minded justices is to put into writing an acknowledgement of their own infirmity.
Rather than depending on the body they just enabled through their miscarriage of justice to halt them with impeachment, the lesson is not that we should agree that federal votes are the only solution - which is essentially to yield to the robed assertion that limits can be vanquished with their diktat - but to refuse to participate in the unconstitutional scheme, and continue (as Jefferson & Madison show by their 1798 examples they find appropriate remedy) to nullify this law in every state that still would retain its sovereignty.
It's becoming abundantly clear the best way to defend liberty is if Texas reclaimed the sovereignty that three years after its declaration of independence consecrated its present flag.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhile I would prefer Obamacare be repealed by Congress and the signature of the president, that isn't going to happen until 2013 at the earliest (or 2017 should Barry get reelected). Until Obama is out of office, it won't be repealed. It still would have to get out of Congress, (even with a Republican president), which will be hard because the Democrats will stonewall the whole way. A Wisconsin style walkout could happen.
If Obamacare is overturned sometime in 2012 by the SC instead, it would give a head start on dismantling this turd of a "law". Every day until at least January 20, 2013 Obamacare is being phased in, the longer it lasts the harder it is to uproot. Everything that the government started to implement will have to be stopped and reversed. That won't repair the damage this law has already made. The people who have already lost their insurance and will lose it due to Obamacare will not get it back. A lot of damage has already happened. I know it has done serious damage locally, as a new for profit hospital that was scheduled to open, won't happen because Obamacare now prohibits the ownership structure.
However I don't think the whole law will be overturned by the SC. I guess we will see.
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