Heitage Foundation

By Amanda J. Reinecker

The quest to repeal Obamacare is not over. In fact, recent events in Virginia and Missouri indicate the battle has just begun.

On Monday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's challenge to the constitutionality of Obamacare's individual mandate overcame its first legal hurdle. His lawsuit protests the federal government's claimed authority to regulate a person's decision not to purchase a product such as insurance.

"I don't think in my lifetime we've seen one statute that so erodes liberty than this health care bill," Cuccinelli said in a recent interview with The Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey. Be sure to watch Bluey's exclusive interview on YouTube.

In rejecting the administration's request to dismiss Virginia's case, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson wrote about the dubious logic of the mandate: 

Unquestionably, this regulation radically changes the landscape of health insurance      coverage in America. … No reported case from any federal appellate court has extended the Commerce Clause or the Tax Clause to include the regulation of a person's decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce. 

Just one day after the Virginia decision, the people of Missouri, a bellwether state in 2008, brought their opposition to Obamacare to the ballot box. The results: by a margin of almost 3 to 1, Missourians don't approve of the mandate and they want out.

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who also sat down for an interview with Bluey, explained the results: 

We had the first vote in the nation in the Show-Me State. And we're showing the nation the way to repeal and replace this big government, big bureaucracy, one-size-fits-all law… We need other states to put it on the ballot like we did. Or pass it through their state legislatures. And continue the grassroots uprising that's spreading like a prairie fire all across America. 

Kinder may get his wish. Three other states -- Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma -- plan to place measures similar to Missouri's Proposition C on their ballots this November. And still more states are adopting statutes to protect patients' rights to pay directly for medical services and to withdraw from the individual mandate. To date, five states have already enacted statutory measures: Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Virginia. Legislation has been introduced in 38 states. And three more states are planning to do so soon.

Additionally, 20 states have filed lawsuits similar to Virginia's against Obamacare.

Heritage Foundation experts will continue to work at the state level to advance principled health care solutions and battle back against Obamacare. "I have learned to pay attention when I get something from Heritage," says one state lawmaker. "[Heritage] has consistently sent things that are very helpful to me in keeping the scope of this issue in mind.  I am grateful."

These grassroots efforts across the country illustrate the great political divide in America. As Heritage fellow Ernest Istook writes, it's a divide between "those who see Washington's power as limited only by the ability to sway voters and we who see it as limited by design in the U.S. Constitution."

At least in states like Virginia and Missouri, the Constitution appears to be winning.

> Other Heritage Work of Note

• In a heavily-publicized and much talked-about decision, a federal district judge in San Francisco has overturned Proposition 8, the Californian ballot initiative defining marriage as between a man and a woman. On Heritage's Foundry blog, Chuck Donovan posted a response to this case of judicial activism within hours of the ruling. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," Donovan argues. "The people of California, and the United States, have made clear in numerous ways that they have not consented to the redefinition of marriage."

• "The Afghan war is indeed a war of choice — between containing and possibly defeating a threat from menacing our shores or allowing that threat to return and grow," Heritage Vice President Kim Holmes writes in the Washington Times. Every war is a choice, he explains, and "in Afghanistan, the cost of losing is far worse than fighting on to victory."

• Writing on National Review Online's The Corner, Lindsey Burke explains how much taxpayers will be paying for each teaching job if Congress passes its new education bailout: $100,000 per teaching job. This despite the fact that the average teacher's salary is $54,000. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing lawmakers back from their summer recess to vote on the bill, which will benefit the top two teachers unions, the NEA and the AFT, to the tune of about $24 million dollars in dues.

• Join Heritage at the Family Research Council Action's Values Voter Summit 2010 in Washington, D.C., from September 17-19. The event will feature prominent conservatives including Phyllis Schlafly, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Bill Bennett, Star Parker, and many more. Heritage will hold a screening of Let Me Rise, our powerful documentary on education reform, and host a panel discussion about the connections between social and economic conservatism. Register at ValuesVoterSummit.org.
  
  » Watch the new video about the event

> In Other News

• This afternoon, Elena Kagan was approved 63-37 as the 112th Supreme Court Justice.

• The AP reports what seems like good news from the Gulf of Mexico: "BP began pumping a steady stream of fresh cement into its blown-out oil well Thursday, hoping to seal for good the ruptured pipe that blew its top months ago and spewed crude into Gulf of Mexico in one of the world's worst spills."

• The total cost of the economic "stimulus" bill remains a mystery. The Congressional Budget Office originally put the price tag at $787 billion. That figure then jumped to $862 billion. The Heritage Foundation now estimates that the long-term costs of the bill will reach $3.27 trillion dollars over the next decade.

• President Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling could cost the nation over 12,000 jobs and $2.8 billion over the next six  months.

• Measuring the success of "sin taxes" has become increasingly difficult as the number of taxes outpaces the research on the various taxed habits.

Amanda Reinecker is a writer for MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. Nathaniel Ward, the Editor of MyHeritage.org; Bethany Murphy, Online Membership Assistant; and Stephen Congdon, a Heritage intern, contributed to this report.