The U.S. House yesterday voted mostly along party lines to repeal Obamacare. The measure will either fail in the Senate or get veoted by President Obama. Everybody knew that going in, but this was an important first step in keeping the debate going so that Obamacare is a major issue in the 2012 presidential race. And on the same day:
Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming and Maine won permission to join a Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health-care reform legislation.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Florida, yesterday granted the states' motion for permission to be added to the lawsuit filed last year by then-Florida Attorney General Bill McCollom, bringing the total of plaintiff states to 26.
“The addition of six new states to our bipartisan legal challenge reflects broad, nationwide concern about the constitutionality of this sweeping and unprecedented federal legislation,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a press statement.
Whether Obamacare is constitutional remains a hotly debated point, and I still think this is one of those 4-4 ties in which the only important question is what Justice Anthony Kennedy thinks. He shouldn't, of course, but he might notice that the number of states in the suit is now over half and take that "broad, nationwide concern" into account. (Virginia has a separate suit, so there are actually 27 states challenging the federal overhaul. ) Indiana was on board early on in the suit.
