Judge Who Ruled Health Care Reform Unconstitutional Owns Piece of GOP Consulting Firm

[jefferson_dem]

Judge Who Ruled Health Care Reform Unconstitutional Owns Piece of GOP Consulting Firm

Henry E. Hudson, the federal judge in Virginia who just ruled health care reform unconstitutional, owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in a GOP political consulting firm that worked against health care reform. You don't say!



As the Huffington Post and others first noted last July, Hudson's annual financial disclosures show that he owns a sizable chunk of Campaign Solutions, Inc., a Republican consulting firm that worked this election cycle for John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, John McCain, and a whole host of other GOP candidates who've placed the purported unconstitutionality of health care reform at the center of their political platforms. Since 2003, according to the disclosures, Hudson has earned between $32,000 and $108,000 in dividends from his shares in the firm (federal rules only require judges to report ranges of income).

Campaign Solutions was instrumental in the launching of Sarah Palin's PAC (though Palin has since split with the firm), and Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general who filed the lawsuit that Hudson ruled in favor of today, paid Campaign Solutions $9,000 for services rendered in 2010.

Anyway, if you're curious why Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, ruled that health care reform's individual coverage mandate violates the constitution, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he as a major shareholder in a political messaging firm that gets paid to argue that health care reform's individual mandate is unconstitutional. It's really just that he's a Republican.

http://gawker.com/5713041/judge-who-ruled-health-care-reform-unconstitutional-owns-piece-of-gop-consulting-firm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+gawker%2Ffull+(Gawker)

[Kdillard]

1. I am shocked.

[frazzled]

2. A GW Bush appointee

And yet so many self-proclaimed "progressives" here agree with this conservative judge's position on mandates.

You've got to love it. I call it the Christopher Hitchens syndrome: so left you come full circle to the right.

[ProSense]

3. Legal expert: Ruling on Obamacare is "very defective" and "will be overturned"

Legal expert: Ruling on Obamacare is "very defective" and "will be overturned"

By Greg Sargent
As you have already heard, a federal judge in Virginia today pronounced the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, delivering the hardest legal blow yet to Obama's signature domestic achievement and handing Obamacare foes some new material for their ongoing anti-Obamacare dance around the campfire.

But on a conference call with reporters just now, a legal expert pronounced the ruling "very defective" in terms of reasoning and legal precedent, and confidently predicted it would be overturned on appeal or by the Supreme Court.

The ruling, by U.S. District Court judge Henry Hudson, made the claim that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, dismissing the Obama administration's argument that the Commerce Clause in the Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce by imposing the mandate. Hudson wrote:

"Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market. "In doing so, enactment of the (individual mandate) exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I.

But Tim Jost, a professor of law at the Washington and Lee University Law School, dismissed this argument, deriding it as a fundamental misreadling of the Constitution and claiming that the judge has "rewritten the Commerce Clause."

Jost, who spoke to reporters on a conference call organized by the pro-health reform Center of American Progress, accused Hudson of an overly narrow reading of the Commerce Clause. He said the judge's reading turned on the idea that the Commerce Clause only focuses on regulating economic activity, when in fact it also empowers Congress to regulate economic decisions that are "not immediately classifable as activity."

more

[Liberal Gramma]

4. He should have recused himself, not pulled an Alito.

[unblock]

5. i actually think the supremos will side with obama on this one

not because they like obama, of course, but because i think they (the majority, or at least the 4 other than the malleable and easily sucked-in kennedy) are basically 18th century tories if not outright fascists and they like the idea of government intervention when it's intervening on the side of propping up big business.

[Raine1967]

6. This part was Startling:

Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general who filed the lawsuit that Hudson ruled in favor of today, paid Campaign Solutions $9,000 for services rendered in 2010.

JEFFERSON! I thought I LEFT GEORGIA! :rofl:


This is a serious conflict of interest. Even Alito recused himself from the Exxon Valdez ruling for his stock issues.