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Posts Tagged ‘lawsuit’

State Attorneys General Agree To File Constitutional Challenge To Obamacare Immediately

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

President Obama, making calls here on Sunday to wavering House Democrats, is about to face a multi-state lawsuit alleging that his signature initiative, Obamacare, is unconstitutional

In late breaking news this evening after the historic passage of Obamacare through the House of Representatives by Democrats over bipartisan opposition, many state attorneys general held a conference call in which it was decided that they would file a multi-state suit alleging the newly-passed Obamacare is unconstitutional immediately after President Barack Obama signs the act, which is expected on early next week.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott broke the news on his Facebook page:

Just got off the AG conference call. We agreed that a multi-state lawsuit would send the strongest signal. We plan to file the moment Obama signs the bill. I anticipate him signing it tomorrow. Check back for an update at that time. I will post a link to the lawsuit when it is filed. It will lay out why the bill is unconstitutional and tramples individual and states rights.

While the entire roster of claims regarding unconstitutionality is obviously unknown at this time, it appears that a central focus of the initial immediate filing (which will undoubtedly be amended several times) will be whether the individual mandate, which requires American citizens to purchase health insurance from private insurers, is a constitutional exercise of the federal government’s proscribed powers. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced late Sunday night after the conference call that Virginia planned on joining the multi-state litigation against Obamacare:

Virginia will file suit against the federal government charging that the health-care reform legislation is unconstitutional, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office confirmed last night.

Cuccinelli is expected to argue that the bill, with its mandate that requires nearly every American to be insured by 2014, violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The attorney general’s office will file suit once President Barack Obama signs the bill into law, which could occur early this week.

“At no time in our history has the government mandated its citizens buy a good or service,” Cuccinelli said in a statement last night.

Finally, Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum announced Florida would join the suit:

ORLANDO, FL — Moments after Congress voted to approve President Obama’s health care legislation, Florida’s Attorney General announced he will file a lawsuit to declare the bill unconstitutional.

Bill McCollum will join Attorneys General from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, North Dakota and South Dakota to file a lawsuit against the federal government.

“The health care reform legislation passed by the U. S. House of Representatives this evening clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state’s sovereignty,” McCollum said in a statement distributed late Sunday night.

“If the President signs this bill into law, we will file a lawsuit to protect the rights and the interests of American citizens.”

As noted above, many other states are also expected to join the multi-state litigation set to be filed this week as soon as President Obama signs the bill, originally passed on Christmas Eve 2009 by the Senate and today passed by the House. This matter will present the largest challenge in decades to the present jurisprudence on the Commerce Clause, which presently allows essentially unlimited federal government regulation of any economic activity. One key factor for the Court is state activism to oppose federal encroachment in any given area, and a total of 37 states may pass specific legislation to battle the Obamacare provision requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance:

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho took the lead in a growing, nationwide fight against health care overhaul Wednesday when its governor became the first to sign a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government if residents are forced to buy health insurance.

Similar legislation is pending in 37 other states.

This litigation will open a new chapter in the Obamacare battle in federal district court, where political fireworks are sure to ensue and a momentous decision is set to be made by the trial court and then, in all likelihood, the Supreme Court of the United States. President Obama may yet regret the recent public fights between him and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito (who Obama filibustered as a Senator), as the existing acrimony between the branches cannot be helpful for the President’s chances of avoiding a damaging Supreme Court ruling that his signature initiative is unconstitutional.

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RICO Action To Be Filed Against ACORN Tomorrow

Monday, October 13th, 2008

ACORNgate threatens Obamas Lead

ACORNgate threatens Obama's Lead


Over the past few days, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has come under scrutiny across in a dozen battleground states regarding their voter registration activities. The most high profile government move to date in this election against ACORN is the FBI’s raiding of Nevada’s ACORN office last week. Today, the scrutiny on ACORN’s voter registration methods continued with election board hearings in all-important Cuyhoga County, Ohio, which encompasses Cleveland.

Tomorrow, the next shoe will drop as a lawsuit in Ohio will initiate a wide-ranging RICO action against ACORN and its subsidiaries. RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and it provides for extended penalties for criminal acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization while also providing a civil cause of action for those injured by violations of the act. The “organization” is ACORN and its subsidiaries, and the criminal acts are the forgery of voter signatures as reported in various states nationwide.

The Obama campaign’s response to the GOP claims of ACORN ties has been uneven at best to date. First, via the “Fight the Smears” website, Obama claimed that he never trained any ACORN workers nor worked for or with ACORN at any time. Almost immediately, evidence of Obama’s representation of ACORN in a voter registration lawsuit in the mid-90’s and multiple published reports of Obama’s training of ACORN organizers surfaced, along with evidence of an $800,000.00 payment to an ACORN subsidary from the Obama campaign this summer. A video of Obama himself stating he’d worked side by side with ACORN for years and will do so indefinitely also reinforced his longstanding ties. Predictably, Obama’s website was then alterered to state that Obama was never a paid employee of ACORN, implicitly conceding the misrepresentations of the initial statement denying any Obama ties to ACORN.

With the new high profile RICO action coming tomorrow, “ACORNgate” could be the first major scandal of the general election. Before now, both Obama’s (Ayers, Wright, Rezko) and McCain’s (Keating) scandals have been rehashings from either the primaries or past campaigns. How the Obama campaign deals with the coming media firestorm tomorrow upon the filing of the action against ACORN could decide the election as ACORNgate may be the last, best chance for McCain to gain traction against Obama in the presidential race.

The effect on the presidential race is could be significant. Centrists and independent voters have little tolerance for explicit fraud by either side in electioneering. Obama is pulling away from McCain in the head-to-head national race presently, now standing at his highest lead of the campaign of about 7%. If McCain can effectively tie Obama to ACORN, those independents and centrists now leaning to Obama may take a second look at McCain and put the race back to a dead even contest going into the final few weeks of the campaign.

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