Up until today Judge Hudson has probably been best known as the judge who presided in the Michael Vick dog fighting trial. After today he will no doubt be known as the judge who began the dog fight over ObamaCare.
From Bloomberg News: U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, said today that the requirement in President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation goes beyond Congress’s powers to regulate interstate commerce. While severing the coverage mandate, which was to become effective in 2014, Hudson didn’t address other provisions such as expanding Medicaid.
Hudson, appointed by President George W. Bush, found the minimum essential coverage provision of the act “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”
The ruling is the government’s first loss in a series of challenges to the law mounted in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Florida, where 20 states have joined an effort to have the statute thrown out. Constitutional scholars said unless Congress changes the law, its fate on appeal will probably hinge on the views of the U.S. Supreme Court’s more conservative members.
The case is Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius, 10-cv- 00188, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond).
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