At Hot Air. Allah says it's not really huge news in the sense we knew somehow this was getting to the Supreme Court, one way or another; this then is just another of the several pathways to get there.

Good analysis of the specific allegations of unconstitutionality; counts one through three allege unconstitutionality due to over-reliance on the Commerce Clause, but four through six suggest another grounds to strike it down: that the federal government cannot "commandeer" the states to enforce certain laws. (A position which has found favor with Scalia, Thomas, and even Kennedy.)

And then there is this bit of wonderfulness:

In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, itÂ’s a tax.

“Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an “Alice-in-Wonderland” tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check,” he wrote.

Vinson ruled that itÂ’s a penalty, not a tax, and must be defended under the Commerce Clause and not CongressÂ’ taxing authority.

Win. We citizens have argued against the basic deception and unfairness of this "it's not a tax for purposes of security political passage, but it is a tax for purposes of determining our power to levy it approach," but that a $6 will get you a coffee at Starbucks. A judge has put it on the record that this will not do. That's something.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (22)
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