Washington Legal Foundation Senior Litigation Counsel Cory Andrews injected WLF’s institutional perspective into an ongoing debate yesterday on the constitutional issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act at one of the web’s most popular legal blogs, SCOTUSblog:
Reading the constitutional tea leaves: How will the Supremes vote on the Affordable Care Act?
Among the many pieces of legislation signed into law by President Obama, none has sparked more controversy than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or “ObamaCare” as it is more colloquially known. The individual mandate contained in Section 1501 seeks to compel most Americans, under threat of civil penalty, to purchase health insurance by 2014. Even many of the mandate’s defenders, including some of the judges who have upheld it, concede that it goes well beyond any previous exercise of federal authority under the Commerce Clause.
In terms of framing the legal questions posed by the individual mandate, it is difficult to improve upon Judge Graham’s formulation in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama:” (continue reading here)