Category: Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties

One of the central concerns that conservatives have about the individual mandate is that it would lead to unlimited federal authority over our individual lives. If Congress can require us to purchase health insurance, conservatives sometimes ask, can’t it require us to purchase cars or broccoli or cell phones? Defenders of the mandate have been so concerned to show that it is justifiable under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses—and there the argument seems quite straightforward—that we have not been focused enough on making sure that we don’t prove too much. And that’s partly because we tend to be political progressives and are not as worried as conservatives about limiting federal power over our economic lives. We are not libertarians, after all. While we progressive are adamant about defending civil liberties, we generally don’t believe that there is a general right to economic liberty. And thus, unless government forces… Continue reading

Revised version of an article published in The Philadelphia Public Record, March 15, 2012 under the title The Founding Fathers and Health Care Later this month the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). There is a narrow question concerning the Commerce Clause and the individual mandate. Most lawyers who have thought about the issue or read the decision of conservative judge Laurence Silberman understand that the mandate is constitutional. There is also a larger debate about not just the ACA but much else the government does. Contemporary right wingers say that the Federal government has gone far beyond its constitutional limits in regulating, taxing and subsidizing economic activity. Libertarians such as Ron Paul argue that the Founders wanted to create a “limited government” that protects our “liberty.” They suppose that by “limited government” the Founders meant what libertarians mean today, a government that does… Continue reading