So how come our state A.G. McKenna isn’t this smart?

Why we won’t file states’ rights suits

Richard Cordray is the attorney general of Ohio, and Tom Miller is the attorney general of Iowa.

Now what was it Washington State A.G. McKenna said was his main reason for wanting to expend limited state funds on a wild goose chase?

His colleagues in the Midwest don’t think so.

Excerpts:

As attorneys general for our respective heartland states, we take issue with the constitutional arguments being made against this new legislation.

Under long-settled Supreme Court precedents, Congress has ample power under the commerce clause of the Constitution to legislate on health care. Congress has the authority to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce “among the several States.”

This is bolstered by the supremacy clause, which explicitly makes the Constitution and the laws of the United States “the supreme Law of the Land” for all Americans.

For Congress to have the power to pass this legislation, therefore, the health care problem need only affect interstate commerce. It clearly does. ... That is also why state laws require many millions of Americans to have car insurance — a few irresponsible citizens should not be allowed to heap the costs of their behavior on the rest of us.

...We live under mandates every day. Without them, society as we know it would disintegrate. Every criminal law tells us what we cannot do.

And sometimes the law tells us what we must do.

Congress can require young Americans to register for the draft to serve in the military, for example, or can require us all to pay taxes for programs like Social Security and Medicare. We can — and do — argue about what shape these laws should take, without claiming that our leaders are constitutionally barred from dealing with our most pressing problems.

Instead of pursuing lawsuits, we should work to find ways to improve the lives of the American people and protect our four most fundamental freedoms: of speech, of religion, from want and from fear.