Florida Federal Judge Rules That 20 State Challenge To Obamacare Mandate Can Move Forward, Dismisses "Alice In Wonderland" Argument From DOJ

Reuters reports that "States can proceed with their lawsuit seeking to overturn President Barack Obama's landmark reform law, a Florida judge ruled on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson had already indicated at a hearing last month that he would reject parts of a motion by the Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuit, led by Florida and 19 other states. The suit was originally filed in March by mostly Republican state attorneys general. In his formal ruling on Thursday, Vinson said the case would continue as scheduled. He had previously set a hearing for December 16."

Politico reports that "U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson allowed two major counts to proceed: the states’ challenge to the controversial requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance and a required expansion of the Medicaid program. 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, it’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. As Politico reports, "Vinson ruled that it’s a penalty, not a tax, and must be defended under the Commerce Clause and not Congress’s taxing authority... Vinson dismissed three of the states’ challenges, including complaints that the law interferes with state sovereignty as to whether employers must offer insurance; that the law coerces states into setting up insurance exchanges; that the individual mandate violates the states' due process rights. The states argued in September that the law violates the Constitution by requiring an expansion of the Medicaid program that’s funded in part by the states and for penalizing people for not purchasing health insurance. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican who lost the state’s gubernatorial primary this summer, filed the suit minutes after President Barack Obama signed the health care bill into law in March. Tweet