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Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill says she "received the message" from the voters back in Missouri, who passed a measure trying to exempt Missouri residents from the individual mandate on health insurance and the employer mandate to provide it:
I know that there’s a lot of work we need to do on not just the provisions of the law, but most importantly making sure everyone knows what’s in the law. And I can only be hopeful that as time goes on, more and more people realize the positive things that are in the bill. I do know that this vote very closely reflected the number of people who voted in the Republican primary versus the Democratic primary. But nonetheless, message received. I appreciate the fact that voters are sending a message. I don’t think it has any impact on the law itself, but it is a message.
Oh, good. For a minute there, I thought she was giving credence to a vote to bring back that old stand-by from the pre-civil war days, nullification.
In the meantime, though, I’ve got a question for my fellow voters in Missouri, for my state legislators, for my governor, for my senator, and for my would-be senator, Rep Roy Blunt: how much will it cost the State of Missouri to defend this nonsense in court?
If Missouri wants to defend the idea of nullification — an idea I thought was put to rest in 1865 — maybe they should hold the hearing in the Old Federal Courthouse in St. Louis, where the Dred Scott case was argued. As long as we’re going back to the arguments of the pre-civil war era, why not go all the way?
Fortunately, Missouri is awash in state revenues, so paying to defend a patently unconstitutional ballot measure is not going to keep state roads from being fixed, state police on the roads, state parks from being cleaned up, nursing homes from being inspected, or affect any of a thousand other important state programs.
Oh, wait . . . Missouri is in the midst of a budget crisis.
Never mind.
70 Comments
If the voters of Missouri want to fight the Mandatory Insurance Act, more power to them. They have a right to have their voices heard — and since Congress ignored them, this is a perfectly legal step for them to take.
As for cost…this is what Missouri voters vote for — a Government that defends them and their interests.
Then fight it in a way that makes sense.
One of the big issues underlying the civil war was the question of the relationship between the states and the federal government. The war was won by the folks that said the states cannot nullify laws passed by congress, simply by voting to ignore them, and a long line of supreme court decisions has consistently upheld that proposition.
This was put on the ballot as a way to channel anger at Washington, not to reform the health insurance system. And channelling that anger in that way is going to cost Missouri a lot of money it does not have.
I wonder if Prop 19 in California is fighting the federal laws against marijuana a fight in a way that makes sense??
Could you comment?
Go Missouri. California showed you the way by ignoring federal law regarding medical marijuana. A lot of people claimed that didn’t make sense either. If enough people don’t buy this crappy insurance that props up the evil healthcartel it would be massive civil disobedience and the feds may have to eventually say “Uncle.”
I also love it that so many people are just no longer paying their mortgages but remaining in their houses until the bank can catch up and marshall the forces to evict, which is getting harder all the time because more people are doing it. They taught us all how to disrespect the law and we are doing it.
Right now, there are two sets of laws banning marijuana — state and federal. As I understand it, California’s Prop 19 addresses ONLY the state laws.
The difference between CA Prop 19 and MO Prop C is that, after making all its changes to various state laws, Prop 19 does not try to say “. . . and we think this trumps federal law.” It certainly challenges the feds to maintain their pot laws, to justify them in the court of public opinion, and to enforce them in court, but it does NOT declare that CA laws trump federal laws.
That’s a big, big difference.
OK, but by passing it I believe they will be setting themselves up to forcing an administration (the next Governor, tasked with enforcing all laws, even those he doesn’t agree with) to defending their laws in court when the feds inevitably crack down on California. And California doesn’t have any money either.
I’m not sure I disagree with your main point at all, I’m just conerned with being consistent. Your post about Missouri is what made me start thinking in this fashion, and I always love and am thankful for posts that make me do that.
I don’t know the right answer yet, but I do hope that when I arrive at one in my mind it is one that is consistant no matter if the state law is one I agree with or disagree with. It seems important to be to either agree that federal law always trumps the will of the people in a state or the will of the people in a state always trumps federal law. It shouldn’t boil down to which law.
IMO.
Thanks for the post and for making me think about this issue in ways I hadn’t. Hope all is well with you and yours.
Ironically, our local ‘Minister of Cannabis’ is currently under DEA arrest, after already winning numerous County, and, even a State Supreme Court ruling in his spiritual ‘right to dispense’…!
Great post, Peterr.
I had great hope for Claire, but more and more I think she’s kind of an idiot.
While the Health Insurance Company and Pharmaceutical Welfare and Giveaway Act of 2010 is undeniably a crappy law, that fact is irrelevant to the discussion. Voters in Missouri don’t have the power to nullify anything passed by the federal government. Peterr is right: We fought a civil war over the issue, (among others). The pro nullification crowd lost. Period.
Just stop all of the Medicaid money to Missouri and allow them to take care of their own. The other states can share that unused money.
Maybe if he called it “incense” and put it in a thurible instead of a pipe, it would help his case.
I’m still a bit undecided on this issue in MO, and of course, being in CA it’s kinda NOT any of my business.
But Margaret, you have considerable sway on me for Peter’s POV.
On the one hand, I’m DELIGHTED anyone is fighting against the provision that folks HAVE to buy insurance.
To me, that’s as wrong as wrong can get, and I don’t care if it IS legislated law, it’s wrong, the feds are wrong to pass it, and damn they if they did. So GO Misssouri to fight this one, as all people should be in the streets to fight this give away to legislated and mandated corporate pillaging from the needy.
On the other hand, there IS that tacky business of nullification and the Civil War.
If I could separate myself from the nullification issues, I’d be TOTALLY gung ho with Mo. But that will likely lead to Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Ed and who knows WHAT else.
Sigh.
Hear! Hear! Yeah…Claire McCaskill is not only an idiot but she seems determined to be to the right of Feinstein, Nelson, Bayh, Lincoln Conrad and Landrieu.
Think about this for a moment:
McCaskill, Feinstein, Nelson, Bayh, Lincoln, Landrieu, Lieberman, Conrad, Webb, Tester, Baucus……who am I forgetting? These people are supposed to be Democrats but every one of them is to the right of where Ronald Reagan was and that is just a list of Senators. It doesn’t touch the ones in the House or the administration conservatives.
And the party wonders why Progressives are going to stay home in November
Peterr – here we go!
Marcy called it the “Road to Neofeudalism” with which I completely agree. The elements of the current bill really ARE shitty.
-Mandate to purchase
-Penalty for failure to purchase
-No Cost controls
Add the PO at worst, single payer at best, then YES, MO is wrong. But neither of those elements are present.
It is neofuedalism and I don’t blame MO voters one bit.
But did MO vote for it cause they are teabagger types or cause the bill stinks?
Oh, I thoroughly agree. This law should be overturned and rebuilt into something more useful to the citizens and less profitable to the corporations but the states don’t have the power to do it. Like I said, lotsa people have already died over that little theory.
I don’t blame them either but they can’t win this way.
The MO vote means only one thing – the people don’t like the health care bill. That’s a fairly strong message.
I won’t speak to people’s motive, as the state of the HIR bill is what it is; the road to neofeudalism.
For myself, I’ll stay consistent with the opposition I held at passage with the opposition I hold today.
Are the two mutually exclusive?
In this case the teabaggers are right but for the wrong reason I think.
Nope. But there are several different points of view on the bill. There is the Obama is a socialist view and there is the Obama is a corporate tool view. Take ur pic.
Peter- if the best argument against trying to protect individuals from corporate-government control is the cost of a lawsuit and not so subtle comparisons to slavery… you are scraping the bottom of the barrel of arguments…
are you implying the hundreds of thousands of Missourians are racist?
progressives should believe in protecting people from arbitrary tyranny- see prop 8 ruling, pro- choice, etc…
This is Hawai’i, where it grows, it flows…! We have already enacted from the County to the State level, laws putting pot as the lowest legal denominator… As I’d noted earlier, the State Supremes’ had ruled he could legally dispense pot… State law already allows individuals to medically grow up to seven plants…! Interestingly, I’m only advocating for the decrimnalization of pot, not legalizing it, per se, but it’s all good in my book…! ;-)
They probably can’t.
But in relative terms of cost, the lawsuit is peanuts compared to the actual feudal outlay for premiums or penalties.
People are mad about HIR, and it’s going to burble up in this form as well as others. And that’s not the people’s fault – it’s the electeds fault.
Wow! I came here to discuss and got a display of acrobatics instead. How did you make that leap?
I recognize that, I acknowledge that and I agree with that. They’re pissing in the wind though in this case.
In better news, I see that Romanoff is pulling away. :)
I’m with you, Margaret, and many others here on the merits of the health insurance stuff that was passed under the misnomer of “reform.”
But I’ve seen the battlefields, and at almost every cemetery that is older than a hundred years, I see the graves of those who fought and died over nullification.
Of the 7 million men born between 1822 and 1842 who reached combat age during the civil war, 10% died — 1 in 15 in the north, and 1 in four in the south. Another 5% died in disease-ridden prison camps. “Altogether, the number killed in more than 6000 civil war battles exceeded the cumulative total for all other American wars — a per capita casualty rate equal to eight World War IIs combined.” (From Strauss and Howe, Generations, p. 210)
At almost every burial I do as a pastor, I spend some time walking around the cemetery, looking at the graves of those who are buried there, and when I see the markers of civil war veterans, I shake my head at the cost.
I have no desire to see the battle over nullification fought again.
Well, let ‘em piss.
I just want to bring up the Greenwald Stricture(as I call it) here:
If you were FOR HIR as it passed, continue to support it.
If you were AGAINST HIR as it passed, continue to oppose it.
That’s the whole point of taking a position; one takes it and keeps it.
I still don’t see the material difference between this and Prop 19 though.
In this case, they passed a state law (through a referendum) that conflicts with federal law.
In California, they are attempting to pass a state law (or amend current laws against possession if you prefer) that conflicts with federal law.
I don’t see the difference between passing a law that is new and in conflict and amending an existing law so that it is now newly in conflict.
Do you see a difference? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Good evening all.
Heat wave back in East.
Fir ‘em or agin’ ‘em. Oh dear.
Weiner rant replayed on TDS.
Absolutely. Therefore I continue to oppose it. :)
The folks pushing this are also the ones chanting the loudest about wasting taxpayer money.
After listening to the commercials by these folks for the last month, the inconsistency of their position — wasting state money to defend a ballot measure that will get tossed out of court — finally got on my last nerve.
Fight the health insurance mandates, but for goodness sake, find a way to do it that doesn’t waste what little tax money is left in the broken state budget on a strategy that has no chance of success.
OK Peterr – the Greenwald Stricture:
Did you oppose HIR as passed?
Yes.
I’m not an attorney but the I don’t see any legal differences between them. Proposition 19 is the right thing to do for largely similar reasons that the proposition in Missouri is the right thing to do and neither of them will carry a whole lot of weight as far as federal law is concerned. The best they can do is get it into the court system and raise awareness.
I’d like to make something as clear as possible since there seems to be some confusion: Just because I don’t believe this vote is going to effect the implementation of this law, doesn’t mean that I support HIR or wish to defend it. Some of the comments seem to suggest that my goal is to defend it. Hardly. I’m just pointing out what the reality is.
Not me.
I’m well aware of your opposition. :)
Hope all are aware of mine as well. I truly believe HCR was worse than doing nothing in that it enshrined the for profit insurance industry into the health care model probably forever now, IMO.
I would love to see it overturned any way possible, even if it’s Republican’s doing it by repealing it. It is bad law, IMO. And sets a horrible precedent, IMO.
Then you can’t give the polite pastoral version of “effing r***ds” that Rahm Emmanuel did.
Look, from the citizen’s point of view, the tax dollar per tax payer for a protest lawsuit is somewhere south of $20 easy.
The demanded feudal premiums per that same tax payer are enormously more than that. It’s a good bet, and a cheap protest.
In this discussion, without talking about the alternatives, which are to tax higher incomes, I simply can’t agree with your conclusions.
OH, and I forgot the main reason I asked is because as I stated above Peterr’s post got me thinking in this direction, and his point about money is valid.
And IMO, Firedoglake doesn’t have the money to waste on something either.
So, if they are the same, and if they do result in a waste of money (and effort), should there be an attempt made to get Firedoglake change it’s mind??
I don’t want to do that, but it does seem a little nutty to throw a lot of money raised by folks in a struggling economy on something that might be completely irrelevant.
Although perhaps one could argue it would be good for issue at a national level to have it passed in states even if they become unenforceable????
Really a thought provoking post Peterr!!!! I love it.
But the Just Say Now campaign is being separately funded, nor is it just about Proposition 19. 19 is just a beginning. I kicked in ten bucks yesterday. :)
Except the cost isn’t as simple as $20 per person.
The cost is kids being shut out of subsidized day care.
The cost is elderly people losing transit options because the state funding disappeared.
The cost is state parks being closed.
I’m all for taxing higher income folks. Absolutely. But funny how that wasn’t on the ballot. What was on the ballot was a money wasting unconstitutional shiny bright object, designed to gin up the teaparty crowd for the benefit of the GOP.
And it worked.
But to go back to Margaret’s observation at 9: “While the Health Insurance Company and Pharmaceutical Welfare and Giveaway Act of 2010 is undeniably a crappy law, that fact is irrelevant to the discussion.”
Attempting to bring back nullification is no path to solving the health care mess, and wasting very scarce tax money on a bright shiny object pisses me off.
I’m with you on the “pissed off” part; narrowing the state budget problems didn’t do anybody any good.
Nullification as a concept is definitely problematic; but the people’s expression against HIR as passed is equally problematic I’m saying.
Falling right into the plan articulated by our good friend from Florida, Mr. Grayson, on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, Rethuglicans say “Die Quickly”..Missouri just voted – OK.
AMF….
Maybe I’m missing the Big Picture here. But to me the initiators of MO Prop C don’t care if the State ever spends a nickel defending it. The point is to get people riled up about the mandate and turn that bitterness against McCaskill or any other Democratic Senator who voted for it. It’s a way of getting publicity and bringing the mandate under the spotlight.
Maybe this is the shit storm that Jane said Democrats were bringing down on themselves when they kept the public option out of the healthcare bill.
All along this administration has been rejecting the concept of energizing its base and instead pursuing a strategy of advantage in (corporate) campaign funds. In Colorado Mark Udall today put out a fund raising email to Democrats for the “Team Colorado”, which includes Bennet and congresspersons Salazar, Markey, and Perlmutter. What about the other Democratic congresspersons, DeGette and Polis? They’re not listed as part of Team Colorado. I guess from Rahm’s view they aren’t good enough team players. What about Romanoff? Definitely not a team player. No donations for him.
Who cares?
Strange bedfellows and all that, anything to advance the cause!
MARY!!!
Where ya been ma’am! Howdy to hubby . . . . pickin party tomorrow night if he’s interested . . *G*
Heh, good to hear ya on this one . . . who knows who we find in our foxholes when the shit fly’s, huh.,
*G*
This is something new, right? Has there ever been a statute that required citizens to buy a specific product in the private market? If its something new I would expect it to be tested in court.
IMHO the mandate sucks whether its legal or not. Missouri’s efforts may be somehow misguided or even doomed from the start. But at least it’s resistance. Go Missouri!
The health insurance companies are the scum of the earth. A gigantic parasite on our health care system. So a law that enriches them at our expense and perpetuates their tyranny is unacceptable.
I want New York to fight the mandate and destroy it.
I don’t want to be forced into a shitty plan where my rates will be jacked by 10-11% and get dropped if I get really sick and they find a hangnail I didn’t report.
I could have lived with the mandate if they included a strong public option…but I won’t be a part of the health insurance industry bailout.
Sure teabaggers are insane, but I’d rather work with those crazy people and their batshit crazy conspiracy theories than give a cent to the corrupt health insurance industry pricks that paid lobbyists to give them a bailout.
Still, Ma’am, ya gotta admit that some states rights issues transcend corporate bought and paid for elected offals and their legislations that are NOT in the interest of ‘we the people’.
As I recall, some of that was the reason d’etre for that there Preamble
;-)
I’m torn . . . . still.
Perhaps, this is the civil war all over again, only we proggies and libs are wearing the grey, and the corporate fascists and our elected offals are wearing Union Blue . . . . that’s a shade of grok that pauses me greatly.
Yep, and it’s MY message.
And Kelly nails it at his #19.
Nice comment Kelly.
Likely more than enough for me to quit the quaver and say, this ain’t the Civil War, and we progs are wearing a uniform, regardless of color, that’s in the best interest of we the people.
And all the other guys aren’t.
N that’s enough to to want to change things.
We are a minority, but we are a moral majority . . . and yes, our morals are better n the other guys.
I just can’t duck that anymore. We ARE better.
And we let THEM take control of it all.
And we the people, the masses, are suffering from it.
Hey, if we the masses are suffering, then why are we a phreaking minority?
;-)
Just a thought, just a poked stick into the cage . . .
So what if they are right for the wrong reason?
If we’re all outgunned, does it matter?
If it’s time to fight, do we do it alone or with any allegiences we can forge?
And then worry about the outcomes after?
But for now, the outcome is predetermined, we’re screwed and there’s NO doubt about it.
You wanna die alone, or maybe live to change things, with wierd bedfellows?
I figger, if I gotta fight, I can do so, and cover my tushy once the first round’s over.
*G*
What’s Obama got to do with this? *G*
He’s a puppet.
He reps corporate fascists . . . we’re against that. So are The Baggers, last I heard.
*G*
That may well be.
However, if you think back to Bush 41, you might recall that mandates were his idea. Republicans created the idea, loved it, fostered it, and only when, you know, the economy-busting Democrats got into office did they pitch this fit.
It’s still unclear to me who is driving the Republican Party’s/TeaBagger chariot right now – the TeaBaggers (the sign-carrying street-urchins) or their instigators (affectionately know in my house as “The Dick Armey”), or they could be just the radical wing of the party apparatus as a flanking maneuver. Which ever it is, you can be certain of two things:
1• The TeaBaggers would love the Hell out of the mandates if their ‘leadership’ told them to-
2• If and when the Republicans regain the overall majority in governance, the mandates will become all sweetness and white light again in the eyes of their ‘party’.
The mandates suck, and they especially suck in the absence of a public option, but the Republican Party will flip that script in a nano-second when the time comes. And the Democrats, the feckless, disarmed half-players they are, won’t lift a finger to stop the mandates OR the hypocrisy of the Republicans entertaining them.
I think the dicks of america enter public service as republicans to destroy the country that created the people that mocked them in elementary school.
Is there any other explanation of Dick Cheney Dick Nixon and Dick Armeys attempts to destroy the good parts of the US?
Sprung floor?
*G*
Peter, with all due respect for all you muse that I respect, that battle IS being faught.
All the battles are being faught, all over again.
It IS north/south, blue/grey, white/black . . .
It’s class war, too, on top of it.
That war then? Like our constitution’s war, it’s being faught every day of our lives, all over again.,
And that, sir, transcends everything else.
We ARE at war.
And all issues and points are on the battleground.
Past wars do not count for our present sitch.
None of them.
Our sitch is unique to these times and climes.
And we are at war.
Everything progs believe in is under siege, as are we the people.
Morally, physically, psychologically.
Our entire being is under siege.
There ARE new cemetaries. There are new graves. There will many more as this sitch continues.
As such, nullification is kinda moot for either side.
IMHO.
No DOUBT about it. And it’s just the beginning. Barely a drop in the ocean of anger that’s boiling.
Exactly. I’m very worried that this is going to end up going to court. *sigh* And, MO doesn’t have the funds for that, but nonetheless the tax payers will be expected to foot the bill for defending this in court. There are a lot of other things we could be doing with that money. Schools in MO are closing left-and-right, our roads are some of the worst in the US, the list goes on and on and on. *sigh*
Sorry. Nothing is ever won or lost for good. Period.
I remember when the abortion battle seemed won for good. Known anybody who tried to get an abortion lately? It’s darned near impossible in much of the country. THAT federal ruling has effectively been NULLIFIED.
The Civil War was fought over questions of nullification and state’s rights in large measure as they related to slavery. Although I believe the average Union soldier marched off to save the union and not necessarily to free “the darkies,” it is clear that slavery provided an irresistable moral imperative and in that sense the Union held the high ground. They fought for that high ground and deserved to win.
Now we are engaged in a new war, testing whether the nation shall submit to advancing corporate tyranny. The present union no longer holds the high ground, but moves as the agent of oppression – financial and otherwise.
Resistance to this oppression is the new moral imperative. Strictly speaking, Missouri and California are in a losing stance. The federal government DOES have the authority to send in the troops and enforce the law and they have done so fairly recently in CA in an attempt to maintain federal primacy. But the people, through the courts, through referendum, through public pronouncement and through outright civil disobedience continue to thwart federal jurisdiction to the point where US marijuana law has effectively been NULLIFIED.
Similarly Missouri has every right to contest the US on the question of health insurance mandates. It sends a clear message to the people that their state govt stands behind them in their attempt to thwart a law which is a clear instrument of corporate domination. Remember back during the great rhubarb over HIR when Keith Olbermann said ” I for one will not purchase insurance from these companies.”? (Easy for him to say, he’s rich enough to pay for any health emergency) but what he said is the nightmare scenario for the companies and the govt in the worry that masses of people due to principle or sheer inability to pay, simply won’t pay.I believe this should be encouraged in any way possible, including legal challenge.
The march to feudalism must be stopped. There are ways to nullify bad law and court challenge is a part of that strategy even if it is doomed to fail. Very few things are EVER settled, period. If you don’t believe me, then stop worrying about your Social Security.
Agreed. The HCR bill is ridiculous. But — my father lived in rural Mo for many years and I would guess the people didn’t vote against HCR because it was a bad bill. They voted against it because, once again, it is a case of ignorance as in “keep your government hands off of my Medicare.” Remember the guy with the truck trailer sign bitching about taxes or whatever and it turned out he’d received over a $1 million in farming subsidies? It’s a lot like that. Most of rural Mo is lined up at the federal government trough by way of farm subsidies, rural health facilities, government jobs in the forestry and conservation bureaus, etc. Sorry to sound like a bitter Yankee, but seriously, anytime these people want to throw off the yoke of the federal government, let them. Give me back my blue state money.
Missouri may be the most “Progressive” state in the Union. At least their voters understand the HC Bill was a piece of sh*t. Why would others not follow? You may not applaud the manner in which they come out with their arguments, but at least they take a stand against something, and possibly win.
For those whining about MO budget and fighting a federal law… I hope those same people are whining about the federal government, its busget and it’s waste of federal tax dollars fighting Arizona’s state law on border enforcement.
I think this is largely political. This might be reading too much into the logistical details of how the deprivation of authority to fine people who don’t buy insurance would work.
And yes, Missouri has budget problems, but that’s because of the Republican Recession. Missouri has actually been one of the best managed states from a fiscal responsibility point of view. Rainy day funds have been managed fairly conservatively, and our teachers’ pension system is in better shape than many others.
If voters can’t decide things that may cost money, then we’ve basically shut down democracy. Chalk up another victory to the financial elites, who managed not just to steal the loot, but then also to threaten us sufficiently so that we can’t make choices at the ballot box.
The fact that we may disagree with the ballot initiative doesn’t change that.
I’m glad that so many Missourians dissed this wretched aspect of Obama’s trojan-horse healthcare “reform”. I’d have voted agin it, despite the fact that it probably won’t directly affect the thing.
But 71%??? The political implications for Obama and the dems are sitting there like a turd in the chiffon-congeal.
Nothing’s changed (Literally…)
“At least we’re better than the republicans!”
Is going to get our asses kicked in 12 weeks, and it should.
A nullification fight isn’t played out in courtrooms
If you believe in state nullification, then what you believe is that the Tenth Amendment means is that the states get to do legislative review on laws passed by Congress, decide on their constitutionality. They have the duty to make such determinations in accordance with the Constitution, of course, but no other institution gets to sit in judgment of how the states use that discretion, or reverse abusive assertions by a state of the supposed unconstitutionality of laws passed by Congress.
If you think, on the contrary, that SCOTUS alone gets to decide on the constitutionality of all actions of all levels of govt in these Unitied States, then you don’t believe in state nullification. You don’t believe in states’ rights at all. You don’t believe that states have rights that derive from their own independentaly held sovereignty, rights and powers that cannot be taken from them by the federal govt, not by Congress, and not even by any judgment of SCOTUS.
If you hold with the former opinion, if you believe in states’ rights and state nullification, there is no way to resolve the legal conflict created when a state nullifies a federal law other than by force, or threat of force.
If these people who talk about state interposition, the supposedly constitutional role of the states in “reining in” the federal govt, are playing things out in federal courtrooms for now, that means one or both of two things.
They might just be confused. They actually don’t believe in states’ rights, and they get behind measures like this MO nullification plebiscite, or the VA nullification bill the General Assembly passed in the Spring without having thought things through, as mere publicity stunts. Because if you believe that SCOTUS gets to decide finally on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, if you have no intention of going anywhere with this controversy beyond the courts, and will accept what SCOTUS determines in this matter, then absolutely nothing is added to what SCOTUS has to consider by these nullification measures, no new issues are created in addition to the underlying issue of whether or not Congress was granted the power to impose such a mandate by Art I, sec 8.
But even folks who know where they’re going with nullification measures would try to get relief first in the federal courts. You need the federal govt’s final say before it makes sense to nullify what the federal govt has done, and everyone agrees that SCOTUS has the final say on what federal law might be, even if we don’t all agree that it has the final say in all disputes over what the Constitution might mean.
Insofar as these people are just confused, all that we have here is just another political circus. I think that this view of the matter is pretty much the conventional wisdom on the subject.
But if they’re serious about nullification, as paranoid cranks such as myself fear, then MO is going to have to be spending quite a bit more than the cost of federal litigation. They’re going to need to raise a militia capable of fending off the US Army. Not as high a bill as you might think, because the US Army will be weakened by the defection of Oathkeepers within its ranks, but still, quite a piece of change.
Oh, I know it was all about sending a message – and the GOP wanted this on the Nov ballot – but since Missouri did not indeed to pass a mandate law it does seem rather silly
Official Ballot Title:
Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:
* Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services?
* Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?
It is estimated this proposal will have no immediate costs or savings to state or local governmental entities. However, because of the uncertain interaction of the proposal with implementation of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, future costs to state governmental entities are unknown.
Fair Ballot Language:
A “yes” vote will amend Missouri law to deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services. The amendment will also modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies.
A “no” vote will not change the current Missouri law regarding private health insurance, lawful healthcare services, and the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies.
If passed, this measure will have no impact on taxes.
or is there something there to order the AG in Missouri to block a Federal law?
I live here in St. Louis, so let me spend a moment on this . . .
My opinion is that this proposition would have had a lot more attention if it had been on the November ballot. This was an August primary election, on the hottest day of the year, where there were really no significant Democratic primary decisions to be made, and there was a teabagger running against Roy Blunt. I’m quite sure the Democratic turnout for this election was very low. The proposition itself didn’t get much airtime locally, and in fact I think most of us that don’t pay real close attention to state politics didn’t even know it was going to be on the ballot until a week or two before the election. The set and setting of the whole thing slanted the issue to the results you see, and I’m quite sure the ballot numbers are in no way representative of the actual support for HCR here.
For example: Total votes cast for U.S. Senate primary candidates -
Republican 577612 Democratic 315787
My belief is that the issue was scheduled for this election for exactly this reason, and I think the evidence for this being a repudiation of HCR by Missouri voters is very thin. But of course, this won’t stop our opponents from representing it as such.
I would agree… if for every primary vote, we have a weather report, and accuracy of how much local airtime the issue gets…
The facts are the facts. This is not some made up equation from Research 2000. These are real votes counted. It is the democrats in MO that show they are spineless, why did they not give more airtime to the topic, why did they not show up? Why don’t the democrats in MO come out and say this is not a representation?
Ignorant or not, the people have spoken and voted. The HC Bill sucks and nobody likes it except big corporations and the politicians that get their pockets lined with campaign contributions.