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Federal appeals court blocks state lawsuit over health care reform law

...the three-judge panel concluded Thursday the state lacks the jurisdictional authority to challenge the 2010 law.

A separate lawsuit by private Liberty University also was rejected on similar grounds.

This leaves the question of who the hell does have standing?

The Richmond-based court becomes the second such federal court to uphold the constitutionality of ...

The court ruled on technical grounds, not the larger constitutional questions...

Who is worse, the reporter that writes self-contradicting articles, or the editor who lets it through to print?

I can't put my opinion on here, because I'm asking questions I don't actually know the answer to.

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The court is upholding the constitutionality of a set of laws which for the most part is entirely unconstitutional by any reasonable measure, and all they care about is procedure? Long live the legal system!

Yes, a body designed to arbitrate disputes cannot create its own disputes to arbitrate.

The point was the point is missed.

This law right here: to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party implies the states have the capability to be roving constitutional watchdogs of sorts. This is a question of whether the United States government has the authority to do what it's doing. I tell you this: when the State legislatures are responsible for amending the constitution, they have a similar watchdog power.

That'd be as-applied standing, whereas the states are challenging facially. I'd have to read the ruling, which I'm sure I'll find the time to do... eventually. My point was just that you can't presume anyone has standing just because they want to challenge the law.

Lol @ "Virginia, the sole plaintiff", a corporate entity of sorts, constitutes "anyone" who lacks the ability to challenge the law

Not... really. I think the state of Virginia has distinctly different interests than each of its individual citizens interests rolled into one.

Ah, but the standing elements are themselves inherent in the constitutional command that the courts will only hear "cases and controversies." "Cases" turns out to have a very specific meaning, one of the elements of which is a party with standing.

You cannot flout the Constitution to uphold it.

Virginia is not the only state to have taken this to court. Multiple district courts have decided for one side or the other.

In different cases, though. Virginia is the sole party to this particular case, thus it's not really something worth commenting on. If a man shoots two different people, we do not say that the victims of both shootings' estates are parties to the same case if they choose to file separately, in different jurisdictions.

If the state of Virginia has no standing to challenge the law in court, then the state of Virginia has no vote in the amendment process. The state of Virginia might as well not be a member of the union. What a gigantic pile of bullshit.

Still don't see how this crafty crap of yours gets us from Virginia being a member of the union capable of challenging something which is so obviously and blatantly unconstitutional to anyone with a rational mind to "Virginia has no standing to challenge the United States".

I'm going to presume that when you say "If the state of Virginia has no standing to challenge the law in court, then the state of Virginia has no vote in the amendment process," you mean "this law amounts to an amendment of the Constitution, and barring Virginia from having its say in court bars them from having any say in that amendment process." If that's wrong, ignore my subsequent remarks, but I can't suss any other meaning out of the statement.

From what I've read in the opinion, this case would never have dealt with the constitutionality of the mandate on the standing asserted. Here's why.

Constitutional standing requires three things: injury-in-fact (and certain limited types of speculative injuries), a causal relationship between the injury and the party you are suing, and redressibility, the ability of the court to fix the problem. The court here addressed the injury-in-fact problem directly, as if there is an injury stemming from implementation of the ACA, then the parties named are proper and the remedy is available.

Virginia recognized that the mere existence of the individual mandate did not grant it standing, and so they passed the VHCFA, which purported to free Virginians from any mandates to purchase insurance. As you are so ready to note in other contexts, the Supremacy Clause means that the Constitution and federal law are superordinate to state law, so any "conflict" is illusory - federal law wins.

And they can't sue as parens patriae, for reasons outlined in the opinion which I'm sure you've read thoroughly by now. Again, it's down to supremacy (that clause you love so dearly).

The VHCFA angle killed this case in its cradle, and it should never have gotten the lower court ruling that it did.

To add to that: Virginia has the same say in the creation of this law as any other state. It sent two senators and far more congressmen and women to Washington to debate and vote on the measure. It's not like the commonwealth had none sworn to represent them.

What disconcerts me is you're going on about procedure, which may be all well and good under a certain set of circumstances, or may actually turn out to be very Pharisaic. As far as Virginia is concerned, the only valid reason I see for them having no standing in a lower court is because the lower court does not have original jurisdiction in this matter. Since Virginia is a State, and cases where a State is a party requires the Supreme Court having original jurisdiction, Virginia made the mistake of starting in the lower court where Democrat judges reign.

Here's the biggest problem Virginia has against Congress' unconstitutional acts: the 10th amendment makes Virginia's powers of legislation indefinite while our constitution enumerates definite, limited power. While General Welfare and Necessary and Proper scared people in the 18th century before the ratification for good reason, Madison made the obvious argument about what it means to enumerate power, then today we sit around quibbling over why the contradiction should be allowed because of such nonsense like "it's a living document". The State of Virginia passed a law stating no citizen will be required to purchase health insurance, and now the United States is contradicting the State of Virginia over a matter where Virginia technically has the upper hand: namely the 10th amendment. As far as court procedure is concerned, evidently James Madison was never the author of the law.

So, you're in favor of state nullification?

I'm in favor of the United States government obeying the constitution or calling for a constitutional convention to wipe out all of Madison's work. You really think Madison intended such a limitless construction contrary to the 10th amendment?

Ah, so we'll just do away with all procedural concerns where you don't like the law they'd like to challenge? You do realize that you're arguing for an historic expansion of the power of the Supreme Court, right?

So wait a minute: let's stop with going down some slippery slope path like you always do. I want to make sure I have this straight: you don't disagree that the constitution makes it pretty damn clear that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over this matter? Correct me on why I'm wrong if I am.

Jurisdiction is not mandatory. The court *may* exercise jurisdiction, but there is no requirement for any court to exercise its jurisdiction. So they do have jurisdiction, but in practice they only exercise it where two states are opposing parties. So it's moot, since they wouldn't have done so here. And even then, the existence of jurisdiction does not create standing, and Virginia would have the same standing problems in DC as they did in the 4th.

Here we are back to Pharisaic procedure which totally destroys the purpose of justice. The only reason justice is supposed to be blind is because it's supposed to be impartial. This is serious partiality if ever there were any.

To have standing you have to A PERSON and have suffered SOME DAMAGES to challenge the constitutionality of something. It's not even about the individual mandate.

Man, you don't even stop to smell the roses before sprinting to scream "tu quoque," do you?

You're wrong. The decision had nothing to do with the constitutionality of the ACA. It explicitly avoids any decision on that grounds, even in dicta. This is not, in any way, a sign that "not everybody agrees that this law is unconstitutional." There was no constitutional issue here, just an application of existing constitutional standing principles to Virginia's claim of standing. Again: there was no discussion in the opinion of Virginia's argument about the constitutionality of the ACA. There was no constitutional issue decided here.

So if they had granted standing, despite the Supreme Court's explicit command that to do so would have been in violation of the Constitution, they would have been acting impartially?

Again, you cannot ask the courts to go outside their Constitutional restrictions to defend the Constitution, any more than you can, say, shoot looters on sight with no trial to defend law and order.

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