Antonin Scalia's ObamaCare Problem

Reason ^ | March 1, 2012 | Damon W. Root

[neverdem]

The Obama administration repeatedly cites the conservative Supreme Court justice in defense of its health care overhaul.

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments later this month on whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which requires all Americans to buy or secure health insurance, oversteps Congress’ lawful authority to regulate interstate commerce, the Obama administration will be drawing heavily from the legal arguments of a surprising ally: conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

That’s because in 2005, when the Supreme Court last heard a major Commerce Clause challenge to a federal regulation, Scalia sided with the liberal majority and wrote a sweeping opinion in favor of federal power. In that case, Gonzales v. Raich, the Court held that the cultivation and consumption of medical marijuana entirely within the confines of the state of California still qualified as “commerce...among the several states” because this intrastate use of medical pot “substantially affects” the interstate black market in the drug.

Justice Clarence Thomas found the majority’s reasoning specious, and famously stormed in dissent, “If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.”

But Justice Scalia wasn’t so worried about limiting the government’s reach. Congress “may regulate even noneconomic local activity,” Scalia wrote in his concurring opinion, “if that regulation is a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce.” Scalia also distinguished his vote in Raich from two recent decisions where the Supreme Court had endorsed a more limited scope for the Commerce Clause. In the first of those cases, United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court struck down the Gun Free School Zones Act because possessing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school was not an economic activity...

[freedomfiter2]

The Supreme Court will not be deciding whether or not Obamacare is Constitutional. They will be deciding whether or not the U.S. Constitution is still in effect or if it is simply a relic of our past.

Either the US Constitution is still in effect or the Federal Government is just a bunch of thugs with guns. The Fed’s legitimacy rests solely on the constitution.

[RedMDer]

Snip

If he accepts the government’s argument that Raich is broad enough to allow Congress to force every American to buy health insurance from a private company, the individual mandate will almost certainly survive.

That makes my blood boil.

[GeronL]

lol.

Liberatarians are crazy

[BuckeyeTexan]

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FReepmail me to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.

[lentulusgracchus]

At what point do taxes and fees and such make us Debt-slaves to the Government?

At least one historian thinks that that is what made the freehold farmers of the Later Roman Empire into the serfs of the Dark Ages. Mind, they were not slaves, and slavery persisted from antiquity into the modern era. But serfdom was the "arrangement" by which ancient senatorial grandees -- who by then were also distinguished in degrees of nobility by such titles as "illustris" and "clarissimus", and also by the imperial title of "comes", or "(imperial) companion", our "count" -- agreed to protect the freeholders from the grasping and desperately needy imperial tax machinery by extending their patronage over them, in return for which the freeholders effectively became bondmen in the name of "amicitia", "friendship": as in, "Don Corleone, be my friend."

[The Working Man]

Thank you for the explanation. If I remember correctly weren’t Serf’s considered to be less than a Slave? They were LITERALLY a part of the land they worked, Chattel or Cattle as some would say.

Slaves had to be fed, clothed and housed as they were considered an investment. They could be bought and sold and as they multiplied, their issue could be also. But a serf could not be sold unless the land was sold too. They had to provide their own food, clothing and shelter.

Unfortunately I can see this coming about again, oh sure it won’t be called serfdom and feudalism but the effects will be the same.