The Real Message of Monday’s Stem Cell Ruling

Pajamas Media ^ | August 25, 2010 | Dan Miller

[DanMiller]

It takes the Congress and the president to enact or to change laws; the president can't do it alone and neither can an administrative agency.

The August 23, 2010, decision of Royce C. Lamberth, chief judge of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C, in Sherley v. Sebelius has legal significance for one main reason: it reasserts the principle, occasionally lost sight of, that laws passed by the Congress and signed by the president — good, bad, or indifferent — trump both executive orders and the actions of administrative agencies. It is hardly a novel principle, and its application here was proper. Judge Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction. That was done based on a substantial likelihood that the plaintiffs would prevail at trial on the merits, that the harm done to them by not issuing a preliminary injunction would be substantial, and that no substantial harm would be done to the defendants.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

This was not a "stem cell ruling."

It was an "embryonic stem cell ruling."

Calling it a "stem cell ruling" is like calling an "illegal alien" an "immigrant."

[dalebert]

true

[DanMiller]

The distinction is quite clear in the article.

Unfortunately, the titles of articles apparently have to be short.