A Long, Strange Trip: My First Year Challenging the Constitutionality of Obamacare
Florida International Law Review, Vol. 6, p. 29, Fall 2010
38 Pages Posted: 28 Mar 2011 Last revised: 14 Dec 2011
Date Written: September 2, 2011
Abstract
This article chronicles the (first) year I spent opposing the constitutionality of Obamacare: Between debates, briefs, op-eds, blogging, testimony, and media, I have spent well over half of my time since the legislation’s enactment on attacking Congress’s breathtaking assertion of federal power in this context. Braving transportation snafus, snowstorms, and Eliot Spitzer, it’s been an interesting ride. And so, weaving legal arguments into first-person narrative, I hope to add a unique perspective to an important debate that goes to the heart of this nation’s founding principles. The individual mandate is Obamacare’s highest-profile and perhaps most egregious constitutional violation because the Supreme Court has never allowed – Congress has never claimed – the power to require people to engage in economic activity. If it is allowed to stand, then no principled limits on federal power remain. But it doesn’t have to be this way; as the various cases wend their way to an eventual date at the Supreme Court, I will be with them, keeping the government honest in court and the debate alive in the public eye.
Keywords: Obamacare, Health Care Reform, PPACA, Affordable Care Act, Amicus Briefs, Debates, Federalist Society, Cato Institute
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