A Debate Bigger Than Reform

[groovedaddy]

While the federal courts consider whether the health care reform law is constitutional, there is an intense and even wider debate playing out in political and legal circles about the Constitution and Congress’s power to solve national problems.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week on the reform law, two witnesses argued fiercely opposing views. Walter Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general under President Bill Clinton, made a compelling case for the law’s constitutionality. He said that the commerce clause was the main source of Congress’s power for regulating the nation’s economy, an argument going back to Chief Justice John Marshall.

Randy Barnett, a Georgetown law professor, made a countercase based on what he calls “the lost Constitution,” an interpretation that would limit much of that basic law, including the commerce clause.

He made plain that his attack on the health care statute is a means to severely limit the power of Congress, urging senators to reach their “own judgment about the scope of Congressional powers,” regardless of “how the Supreme Court” has ruled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/opinion/10thu2.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

[jwirr]

1. Scary.