The Potato Pushback: Idaho and ObamaCare

There is good news coming out of Idaho today:

Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter on Wednesday became the first state chief executive to sign a measure requiring his attorney general to sue Congress if it passes health reforms that force residents to buy insurance. Similar legislation is pending in 37 other states nationwide.

Last week, Virginia legislators passed a measure similar to Idaho's new law, but Otter was the first state chief executive to sign such a bill, according the American Legislative Exchange Council, which created model legislation for Idaho and other states. The Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit group promotes limited government. (Source.)

It appears that a tidal wave of lawsuits is slowly forming in anticipation of the passage of ObamaCare. Not only are states pushing back but so are a handful of physicians:

The court challenge, filed on behalf of Daniel G. Anderson of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and nine prominent physicians from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, claims that President Obama "already has abused his executive powers in an effort to leverage control over the vote of key moderate Senators" and that if he is not barred from similar actions, "irreparable harm is actual and imminent."

Administration lawyers will ask Chief Judge Peter J. Messitte (Case No. 8:10-00017.PJM) to deny the doctors' injunction and dismiss the suit on the grounds that the physicians have no standing to bring the action against the Obama healthcare plan and that the issue is a "political question."  In an opposing brief Hagerstown attorney R. Martin Palmer argued that if "Obamacare" were to become law by unconstitutional means, the physicians would suffer "irreparable harm" in being forced to practice medicine "deficiently" and subject them to "arbitrary outside restraints."

At the heart of the physicians' suit is their claim that President Obama has overstepped his constitutional powers:

"Plaintiffs only seek to enjoin a particularly pernicious form of coercion and intimidation, namely the making of threats regarding the use of the President's Executive powers in ways that are adverse [to] the constituents of one or more of the members of Congress in order to pressure those members into voting for (or against) legislation.  This practice involves the use or abuse of the President's Executive powers to leverage control over the Legislative branch, thereby leading to the concentration of powers in a single branch of government that allows for the exercise of arbitrary power and tyranny." (Source.)

 Will this prayer for injunction by the Physicians be successful? We'll have to see and find out.