The Origins of the State AGs’ Lawsuit

I interviewed Texas attorney general Greg Abbott for my piece today on the state AGs’ lawsuit, and he told me something interesting which didn’t make it into the piece but which I thought I’d share: The lawsuit began as a request from the two senators from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint:

The conversation really began in December when the two U.S. senators from South Carolina contacted their attorney general, McMaster, about the Nebraska compromise, raising legal concerns about that. General McMaster assembled a group of attorneys general, including myself, and we all signed a letter that was sent to Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid outlining our concerns about the constitutionality of the Nebraska compromise.

After that, I received a request from the two U.S. senators from Texas asking additional questions about other constitutional concerns about the health-care bill, including questions about the individual mandate. At the same time, some of these other attorneys general, such as the attorney general from Florida and General McMaster from South Carolina were dealing with the same issues.

And so throughout this time, since December, we’ve maintained a dialogue amongst ourselves about these issues, about the appropriate ways to address these issues, about the desire to inform Congress about constitutional concerns in the hope that that would dissuade them from passing a bill that could have constitutional challenges to it. When we saw, over the past few days, that Congress was moving toward passing this bill with the individual mandate, we began finalizing our complaint to be filed in federal court, and had several discussions over the weekend, and we were ready to go as soon as the president signed the bill into law.

I asked Abbott if Speaker Pelosi or Leader Reid had any response to the letter: “I am unaware of a specific response being sent directly from them to us,” he said. “I did hear about a reporter asking Speaker Pelosi about it, and she said, ‘You must be joking,’ or something along those lines.”

I couldn’t find that particular sound bite, but I did find a press release on the Speaker’s web site responding to questions about Obamacare’s constitutionality by arguing that “the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited.”

Really? I’d like a second opinion.

Update: “Are you serious?”:

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”