Liberal free for all coming to an end

[smc]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Ok, Judge Vinson ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional and ordered all implementation of the bill to be stopped immediately. Until it goes to the Supreme Court this is the law. Any further work done towards implementing Obamacare is illegal. Yet the Obama administration announced that it will not comply with the court order. And this is while another federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt. He also directed Nasa to continue canceling successors to the space shuttle despite congress' order to stop. Why does Obama think he is above the law? Has only 2 years of power gone to his head? The voters spoke loudly last election that they did not want Obamacare. The House voted to repeal Obamacare. 26 states sued the government over Obamacare and two federal judges found the bill unconstitutional. Yet the democrats in the senate and the president continue to snub their noses at the American people, the judicial branch and the Constitution. This is what a dictator does. A dictator answers to no one, and neither does Obama.

Once again, Tracy Coxx reserves for Tracy Coxx the "right" to a personal set of facts. The line above that I have bolded is simply not true.

In fact, the judge ""declared" the law unconstitutional. In legal terms, the use of that word is relevant. It means that Vinson expressly refused to enter an injunction. In other words, he declined to command the Obama administration to take any particular action.

Irrespective of the rest of his ruling, this is the important point with respect to Tracy Coxx's false statement. The ruling does include a suggestion that the government should heed the ruling, but by deciding to use declaratory relief Vinson deprived himself -- assumedly, by choice -- to use his contempt power to punish the government, should it choose to ignore his ruling, pending review by higher courts.

The ways in which our legal system works are complex, but this difference between declaring and enjoining is not so hard to understand.

Why would Vinson declare rather than enjoin. Of course, we cannot know for sure, but I believe reasonable speculation to be that because the provision of the law that he believes renders the entire thing unconstitutional -- i.e., the individual mandate -- does not go into effect until 2014, it gives time for appeals and further rulings. In other words, Vinson saw no need to stop something that isn't yet in effect, and to his credit will allow the two sides to continue their legal arguments before higher courts than his.