I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never played one on tv, so it took me a couple days and re-reading several times to figure out how this case, Bond v. Unites States, would or could have bearing on the ObamaCare lawsuit.
Thanks to Dena for sending this to me.
In a nutshell, Carol Bond found out there her husband had impregnated her best friend. To exact revenge on her best friend, “Bond placed hazardous chemicals on the homewrecker’s mailbox, car door handles and the like, hoping to injure her now-former friend. All the ex-friend got was a minor burn.” But instead of this being tried as an assault or manslaughter case in a state court, the federal government decided to step in and “charged her with violating a law that was passed under an international treaty banning the use of chemical weapons.”
“The court of appeals ruled against her, holding that she didn’t even have the legal right (which we call “standing”) to bring the claim, because only a state could argue that Congress had infringed upon state power. At the Supreme Court, Bond got some help from an unexpected source: the federal government, which agreed with her that she had the right to challenge the law – a procedure that is known as “confessing error,” or admitting that you are wrong. So the Court appointed an attorney (in this case, as it usually does, it chose a former Supreme Court clerk) to argue that the Third Circuit had been correct.”
The Supreme Court stated that the federal government had no right to interfere with a STATE’S RIGHTS issue. ” She argued that she couldn’t be charged with federal crimes because her crimes were the kind of crimes that states should prosecute. Put into constitutional terms, her argument was that when Congress passed the law, it intruded on the rights that the Constitution, in the Tenth Amendment, leaves for the states.”
Last “Thursday, the Court unanimously agreed with Bond and the government that she did have “standing” to argue that the federal government had gone too far. The Court pointed out that the right Bond seeks to vindicate is her own, because she benefits from a federalist (states’ rights) system.”
Now how does all this relate to ObamaCare, you ask?
The SCOTUS has ruled that an INDIVIDUAL has the right to claim a violation of state’s rights because that is the system of government that we live under.
Government mandated health care can be construed as a violation of the Tenth Amendment – a subject that must be left up to the individual states and its citizens to decide – not the federal government.
This case, that the SCOTUS found in favor of Carol Bond and State’s Rights, could very well be a foreshadowing of how they will rule on the ObamaCare case when it finally comes before them.
We can all at least hope.
Diary of a Mad Conservative 