The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the individual mandate portion of the health care reform law is unconstitutional. That this ruling conflicts with the earlier 6th Circuit Court ruling essentially assures that it will be considered by the Supreme Court. From Talking Points Memo:
In a blistering dissent, Judge Stanley Marcus, also a Clinton appointee but a Republican originally nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, intimated that his colleagues were legislating from the bench. “Quite simply, the majority would presume to sit as a superlegislature, offering ways in which Congress could have legislated more efficaciously or more narrowly,” he wrote. “This approach ignores the wide regulatory latitude afforded to Congress, under its Commerce Clause power, to address what in its view are substantial problems, and it misapprehends the role of a reviewing court. As nonelected judicial officers, we are not afforded the opportunity to rewrite statutes we don’t like, or to craft a legislative response more sharply than the legislative branch of government has chosen.”