The Justice Department has offered its first response to one of the lawsuits filed recently challenging the constitutionality of health-care reform. And it offers a strong indication of what the government’s legal strategy will be as it seeks to defend against the spate of similar lawsuits.
In a filing in U.S. District Court in Michigan today, reports Main Justice, DOJ lawyers wrote that the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative legal group in that state, lacked standing to challenge the law, because the individual mandate — the provision at issue — won’t go into effect until 2014. “They bring this suit four years before the provision they challenge takes effect, demonstrate no current injury, and merely speculate whether the law will harm them once it is in force,” wrote the government’s attorneys.
Several legal observers had raised this issue of “ripeness” as likely to play a prominent role in the Justice Department’s defense of the law, which is also being challenged by 13 state attorneys general, among others. Some Senate Republicans have even said that they intend to ask Elena Kagan about her views on the law’s constitutionality during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
The Justice Department had said previously that it intended to “vigorously defend” the law.
One of the figures associated with the Thomas More Law Center is Kim Daniels, who reportedly prepares daily briefings for Sarah Palin.
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