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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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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.

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.

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.

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.

Evidently before the very early 20th century, they would've had standing. Court doctrine drastically changed, which to me says the courts got lazier. So again, you're saying there's some sort of constitutional restriction, except guess what, my lawyer friend, there isn't. The only "constitutional restriction" is based on Supreme Court interpretation from the early 20th century.

Ah, so because it's recent it must be wrong. Good reasoning!

That's actually not the reasoning. The reasoning is the United States constitution's language very obviously gives citizens of states standing in the Federal court system, and now in the 20th century all of the sudden the plain text is wrong because of some court decision. That's not the argument, and you really would do well to stop jumping to wrong conclusions.

Citizens of states != states, though. And it only does so in "cases or controversies."

I understand your desire to go against the last hundred years of legal development, but I don't really respect it.

If we're to talk about situational context, like situational irony, legal development is an oxymoron. How can we go from having a court system interpreting the language of the law like any normal English-reading individual to "legal development" of immense restriction? So you may not respect me, and I will just as soon have an immense lack of respect for your exceeding lack of rational basis for your beliefs, but at the same time, you probably have to espouse your illogical doctrines to pass the bar. I won't hold that totally against you since everyone needs a vocation, but I can't consider you an honest individual. Anyone who doesn't think the federal government's contradiction of the 10th amendment and state law constitutes injury can't be terribly honest.

Nah, the bar can't oust you for personal beliefs about what the law *should* be. I just prefer to deal in the realities with which we are faced, rather than some idealized model of the law as it was centuries ago. The entire point and central strength of the common law model is that it develops and changes over time. Judges apply old principles to new cases, and thus create or illuminate new principles that had never before arisen, or were not dealt with.

I could agree with you with no problems with potential bar admission. I may not be able to say what you would agree with on the bar exam, but that's a test of how you would interact with the law as it exists, not the law as you would have it be, so that makes sense even if nobody on the bar examiners board agrees with it. So you can rest assured that I am being perfectly honest with you when I say that Virginia's law does not constitute an injury.

As far as honesty is concerned, you may say you're being honest based on your knowledge of court procedure as it is today, but clearly in all our discussions you aren't on the same page as me. When I say being honest, I mean being valid as far as truth is concerned. If some court doctrine or principle contradicts a plain truth, it's not honest.

There is a difference between honesty and truth. If I am wrong about a fact, but I sincerely believe it when I say it, I am honest but wrong. If I lie about what I believe to be true, and my lie by happenstance is the truth (which I misunderstood), then I am a dishonest truth-teller.

Also, thanks for the compliment, but I'm not (yet) admitted to practice before any bar, and thus not a lawyer.

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