The passage of Obamacare heralded an important discussion on whether the Constitution places any effective limits on federal power and, in particular, where Congress gets the constitutional warrant to require every person to enter the private marketplace and buy a particular good or service.  This is a healthy discussion to have, including in the courts.  

Today’s ruling in Michigan, dismissing the Thomas More Law Center’s challenge to the individual mandate, while disappointing to those of us who believe that the government lacks the power to commandeer people to engage in transactions – “economic mandates,” as it were – is but one of many legal decisions we can expect on the way to the Supreme Court’s ultimate resolution of this important issue.  Indeed, this summer we saw a ruling by a federal judge in Virginia allowing that state’s legal challenge to the individual mandate and other aspects of the health care legislation to proceed.  And last month, a federal judge in Florida heard arguments in a similar lawsuit brought by 20 other states – a decision on which we can expect later this fall.  Other serious cases continue in Arizona, Missouri, Ohio, the District of Columbia, and elsewhere.

Perhaps most notable about the Michigan opinion, however, is the scant space spent on the serious Commerce Clause arguments on which hundreds of pages have been filed in these cases by top lawyers, legal experts, and academics (including Cato – yes, I’m heavily vested in this litigation).  After granting that the plaintiffs had standing and that the case was ripe for adjudication, and rejecting the government’s odd Anti-Injunction Act defense, Judge Steeh takes only seven and a half pages to reject the plaintiffs’ arguments – half of which is spent reciting existing doctrine.  It is as if the court merely issued a “placeholder” opinion, pending a “real” resolution on appeal.

And the novel conclusion we gain from this curt disposition is that Congress can now regulate people’s “economic decisions,” as well as do anything that is part of a “broader regulatory scheme.”  If the Supreme Court eventually upholds the kind of reasoning Judge Steeh used here, nobody would ever be able to claim plausibly that the Constitution limits federal power.  Finding the individual mandate constitutional would be the first interpretation of the Commerce Clause to permit the regulation of inactivity – requiring an individual to engage in economic activity. 

The federal government would then have wide authority to require Americans engage in activities of its choosing, from eating spinach and joining gyms (in the health care realm) to buying GM cars.  Or, under Judge Steeh’s “economic decisions” theory, Congress could tell people what to study in school or what job to take.  That may be the unfortunate state of the law in a few years – once the Supreme Court has weighed in, and I doubt it would ever go so far in any event – but it is not up to district courts to extend constitutional doctrine on their own.

Elena Kagan’s confirmation represents a victory for big government and a view of the Constitution as a document whose meaning changes with the times.  Based on what we learned the last few months, it is clear that Kagan holds an expansive view of federal power – refusing to identify, for example, any specific actions Congress cannot take under the Commerce Clause.  She will rarely be a friend of liberty on the Court.

It is thus telling that Kagan received the fewest votes of any Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court in history, beating the record set only last year by Sonia Sotomayor.  Even several senators who had voted for Sotomayor voted against Kagan, including Democrat Ben Nelson – as did Scott Brown, the darling of these high-profile Senate votes.

It was Scott Brown’s election, after all, that signaled that last year’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey were no fluke, that whether people lived in a Red, Blue, or Purple state, they were tired of bailouts, “stimulus,” re-regulation, and, especially, the government takeover of one-sixth of our economy.  This anger has only grown since then, making itself felt most recently in Missouri voters’ overwhelming (71-29) rejection of the individual health insurance mandate.

“Where does the government get the constitutional authority to do this?” the cry goes up across the land.  Elena Kagan won’t give a satisfactory answer but the American people are right to continue asking.

As Michael already noted, Judge Henry Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia denied the government’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s legal challenge to Obamacare.  Notably, Judge Hudson agreed with Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett (see here, here, and here) that the government’s assertion of Commerce Clause authority for the individual mandate is unprecedented:

The guiding precedent is informative, but inconclusive. Never before has the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause been extended this far. At this juncture, the court is not persuaded that the Secretary has demonstrated a failure to state a cause of action with respect to the Commerce Clause element.

And that goes for the government’s arguments generally:

While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate–and tax–a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce. Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor any circuit court of appeals has squarely addressed this issue. No reported case from any federal appellate court has extended the Commerce Clause or Tax Clause to include the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce. Give the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side’s position, this Court cannot conclude at this time stage that the Complaint fails to state a cause of action.

In other words, at this first, early stage of litigation, Virginia’s lawsuit survives and the government has a real fight on its hands.  Read the whole opinion here. 

Now, this ruling does not decide the merits of the case and is not binding on any other court in any of the other Obamacare lawsuits – on Friday, for instance, Florida is due to file its brief opposing the government’s motion to dismiss the 20-state suit – but it is a beachhead in the fight against big government.  Judge Hudson’s opinion should finally silence those who maintain that the legal challenges to Obamacare are frivolous political ploys or sour grapes. The constitutional defects in the healthcare “reform” are very real and quite serious. Never before has the government claimed the authority to force every man, woman, and child to buy a particular product - and indeed such authority does not exist (as Cato’s amicus brief argued).

I look forward to further favorable rulings as the various lawsuits progress.  For further commentary, see Ilya Somin, Josh Blackman, and Hans Bader.