NJ anti-HCR plaintiffs to get summary judgment hearing

Two New Jersey men who filed a pro se lawsuit against the massive healthcare-reform bill passed last spring have received notice of a hearing in federal court on a motion by them for summary judgment for default against the federal government.

Nicholas E. Purpura and Donald F. Laster Jr, members of the Jersey Shore Tea Party, have filed a motion for summary judgment on December 9 in their lawsuit, Purpura et al. v. Sibelius et al., seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and alleging 15 separate reasons why the healthcare-reform law, HR 3590, is unconstitutional. On December 9, they filed a motion for summary judgment for default, saying that the government had never once answered their 15 counts, and they were entitled to summary judgment after 60 days without an answer. Judge Wolfson has now set a hearing on that motion for January 3, 2011.

Almost immediately after filing their lawsuit, Purpura and Laster asked for a temporary restraining order against the new law. The judge denied their request toward the end of October, prompting them to ask her formally to step down from the case and turn it over to another judge. Judge Wolfson denied that request on November 24. But, though the government responded to the request for a TRO, they have never actually sent a response to address the merits of the case, according to the summary-judgment motion.

The two originating plaintiffs maintain a .zip archive of all of their court filings, and the responses to them.

The complaint alleges that the healthcare-reform law is unconstitutional for these reasons:

1. It originated in the Senate, not the House. (Purpura and Laster contend that the wholesale substitution of the Senate text for the text of another, unrelated House-passed bill is not satisfactory. However, the Senate recently did this again, with the Food Safety Modernization Act that they passed last night.)
2. It exceeds the Commerce Clause. (In Cuccinelli v. Sibelius, Judge Henry E. Hudson has essentially ruled similarly.)
3. It sets up yet another uniformed service (the USA currently has seven) with a four-year appropriation.
4. It levies a capitation tax without apportionment.
5. Its medical-device tax discriminates against the exports of the States that said devices are built in.
6. Obama is not a true natural-born citizen within the meaning of the Constitution.
7. It taxes income twice, or taxes income that does not exist, thus exceeding Amendment XVI.
8. It subjects patient medical records to unreasonable search and seizure (Amendment IV).
9. It takes property without compensation and subjects patients to "involuntary servitude" (Amendments V and XIII).
10. It directs States to take property without due process of law and in some cases does not allow for religious scruples (Amendment XIV).
11. It exempts some specific religions from compliance, thus prohibiting some people's free exercise of religion and establishing other religions as favored (Amendment I).
12. It creates a federal monopoly, in violation of existing anti-trust law, without specifically abrogating that anti-trust law.
13. It discriminates among races by providing special grants to black-dominated institutions and through its tax on tanning salons, an establishment that only the light-skinned would use. (Title VII; Amendment XIV)
14. It directs State legislatures to accept things that violate the federal constitution, in violation of the oath to support the constitution (Article VI).
15. It exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and thus infringes upon powers properly reserved to the States and the people (Amendment X).

Separately, Rich Martin suggested yesterday that many insurance companies are quietly expecting the healthcare-reform law never to go into force, in light of the Cuccinelli ruling and other rulings to come. (Purpura, Cuccinelli, and Florida are only three of twenty pending lawsuits against this new law.) Martin also cited Article I, Section 7 as a ground to throw the law out. But, concerning the US Supreme Court, the likely final community of appeal of all these case, Martin observed:

Of course, that brings us back to where we started. The SCOTUS has 4 conservative Justices, 4 progressive Justices and one RINO, Anthony Kennedy. And if any one of them quits or dies, there’s going to be [a stormy] ratification hearing in the Senate.

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