The Wall Street Journal seems almost giddy over the opportunity presented by this "constitutional moment":
'If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
Federal Judge Roger Vinson opens his decision declaring ObamaCare unconstitutional with that citation from Federalist No. 51, written by James Madison in 1788. His exhaustive and erudite opinion is an important moment for American liberty, and yesterday may well stand as the moment the political branches were obliged to return to the government of limited and enumerated powers that the framers envisioned.
As Judge Vinson took pains to emphasize, the case is not really about health care at all, or the wisdom—we would argue the destructiveness—of the newest entitlement. Rather, the Florida case goes to the core of the architecture of the American system, and whether there are any remaining limits on federal control. Judge Vinson's 78-page ruling in favor of 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, among others, is by far the best legal vindication to date of Constitutional principles that form the outer boundaries of federal power.
I'm not nearly that optimistic. Legislators and judges have been cleverly misinterpreting the Constitution for decades to get around the limits it puts on federal power. Even if the Supreme Court finally agrees that using the Commerce Clause to force citizens to take part in an economic activity goes far beyond constitutional justification, that would not likely slow the aggrandizement of power in Washington, let alone reverse course to the point where we revert to "limited and enumerated powers." Love to be wrong, though.
