The Pacific Legal Foundation seems unable to face its defeat before the Court in June. The PLF has filed a motion seeking leave to amend a complaint on behalf of a small business owner who would have the ACA declared unconstitutional based on the theory that the law was introduced in the Senate, not the House. Article I section 7 of the Constitution commands that “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House….” This plaintiff, Matt Sissel, originally filed a complaint challenging the constitutionality of the ACA as exceeding Congress’s commerce power; but, because the Court decided that the ACA is constitutional as an exercise of tax authority in part because it raises revenue, the plaintiff seeks to amend his complaint rather than allow it to be dismissed based on the decision in NFIB v. Sebelius.
It seems ironic that this novel filing made news the same day that the Census Bureau reported that the number and the percentage of uninsured Americans dropped for the first time since 2007. The drop is largely attributed to young adults being permitted to stay on their parents’ insurance policies under new ACA requirements. While the drop is movement in the right direction, it is hardly a victory given that nearly one in six Americans still lack health insurance coverage and the percentage of Americans on Medicaid has increased due to the ongoing effects of the Great Recession. Nevertheless, it is a small taste of the positive outcomes that the ACA may produce if the federal government could stop defending the law and instead focus on implementing it.
Though it seems unlikely that lower federal courts will be interested in the obscure constitutional provision PLF relies on, as I have said before, the administration needs to learn from the nonchalance with which it initally treated challenges to the ACA. The novelty or obscurity of the challenger’s theory does not correllate to failure with the Roberts Court, which has proven itself willing to accept new legal theories and willing to ignore or modify precedent.
[cross-posted from HealthLawProf Blog]
Precedent has no role in the Supreme Court. Otherwise we might be stuck with things like Dred Scott and Plessy/Ferguson.
I also dispute that the origination clause is “obscure” to all but the most Constitutionally ignorant…that said I also agree that PLF is likely to fail on this one. The Senate took a House bill and amended it into the ACA and while that may be an obviously underhanded tactic, the Senate clearly understood they had to do it that way.