Dem lawmaker says Supreme Court may nix individual mandate

[Marcus Bryant]

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-actio...vidual-mandate

[boutons_deux]

Weiner running his mouth. Which team is he on. Typical Dem bull

[Spurminator]

Why should one's prediction of how the SC may side on an issue be bound by his "team"?

[Nbadan]

That's not what Weiner was saying at all...in fact, he believes that nixing the individual mandate will open the door for single-payer...

but the law won't be changed..here;s why...

By RICHARD J. BONNIE, ANDREW J. PEACH
Published: March 06, 2011

Richard Bonnie is the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia, where he directs the Ins ute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. Andrew Peach is a law student at U.Va.



The individual mandate admittedly presents what lawyers call a case of first impression — meaning that Congress has never done anything quite like this before. However, if the justices adhere to well-established cons utional principles and do not disavow their previous rulings, a firm majority of the court will rule that the individual mandate is within Congress' cons utional authority.

In 2005, Scalia laid out his commerce clause jurisprudence in a medical-marijuana case, Gonzales v. Raich . The issue in Raich was whether the federal Controlled Substances Act, which criminalizes the cultivation or possession of marijuana — including its cultivation and use solely for personal medical purposes — exceeds Congress' power to regulate "commerce among the several states" under the commerce clause.

Scalia cited approvingly one of the most expansive interpretations of the commerce clause in cons utional history, Wickard v. Filburn , a post-New Deal decision that allowed Congress to regulate the production of wheat for personal consumption on the farm because of the impact such production, when aggregated, would have on the regulated wheat market.

As Scalia summarized, citing precedent, "here Congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce, 'it possesses every power to make that regulation effective.'"

In the final analysis, Obamacare's individual mandate may be imprudent, a product of haste, partisanship and political miscalculation, and a novel and expansive exercise of federal power. But however vociferous the objections may be, it is well within Congress' cons utional authority as understood by a firm majority of the Supreme Court, including Scalia.

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