Even before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, right-wing state attorneys general were announcing their intentions to sue the federal government over the constitutionality of health care reform. Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli — who is also an avowed Tea Party loyalist — was the first one out of the gate with a lawsuit, going to Richmond’s federal courthouse to the file papers less than five minutes after Obama signed the legislation. Eighteen other states have also now joined Florida’s similar lawsuit.
These lawsuits are frivolous. Even conservative legal scholars have acknowledged that they have no chance at succeeding and seem to be nothing more than political theater. ThinkProgress has done an analysis of the states suing the federal government and founded that indeed, political motivations do seem to be driving the suit:
– Of the 16 attorneys general in the lawsuits, 11 are either running for re-election or higher office. Four, including Florida’s Bill McCollum, are campaigning to become governor, and seven are up for re-election this year.
– Four Republican governors have gone around their attorneys general who have refused to sue and joined the lawsuit themselves. Half of them are up for re-election this year, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN) is considered a potential GOP nominee for president in 2012.
– South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster (R), who is running for governor, is circulating a video touting his role in the health care lawsuit, which may “open the suits to the charge of playing politics.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/08/ags-lawsuit-political/
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