Cuccinelli: Federalism itself is at stake in health care debate

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- The legal battle over health care reform legislation is about more than medicine and insurance, Virginia's attorney general said Monday night.

"It is about liberty, and it's about the outer reach of federal power," Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II said.

Cuccinelli, who recently moved to Nokesville, was the featured speaker at a gala for the conservative Prince William & Manassas Family Alliance.

The federalist system, with its horizontal checks and balances among the branches of the federal government and its vertical checks and balances between the federal and state governments, best protects the family, he told a crowd of about 90.

The health care bill recently signed into law is an example of the federal government rolling over those vertical checks and intruding onto states' authority, Cuccinelli said at the Four Points by Sheraton outside Manassas.

That move is in contrast to the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees states' rights and limits the federal government's power, the Republican said.

"I don't think Congress got the memo," he quipped.

And that's why the state's top lawyer said he's sued the federal government, claiming the law is unconstitutional.

If government can compel a citizen to buy medical insurance, it could force someone to buy a car, or another product, Cuccinelli said.

And if Virginia loses its case, a precedent will be set that the federal government's power is no longer limited, destroying federalism, he said, noting that was the conclusion of Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University.

"That's what's at stake," Cuccinelli said.

To further his point, he used an anecdote from when Republicans were in the driver's seat in Washington instead of Democrats.

That was the 2005 case of Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old Florida woman with brain damage who was being kept alive with a feeding tube.

Her husband wanted it removed, her parents felt otherwise and Congress passed a law transferring legal jurisdiction of the case from state to federal courts. Schiavo died when the feeding tube was removed and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an emergency appeal from her parents.

Though a lot of "good conservatives" took up Schiavo's cause, Cuccinelli said, it was inappropriate for the federal government to try to force Florida to act.

Virginia's health care case might not be wrapped up until the summer of 2012, he said.

Attorneys for the federal government will respond to his lawsuit May 24. He expects the case eventually to make its way to the Supreme Court, where he said Justice Anthony Kennedy would be the likely swing vote.

And, the attorney general joked, "I'm always a little nervous relying on someone named 'Kennedy.'"

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.