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Intrastate Fights Over Healthcare Legal Challenge

By Eric Lipman

The blawgs have, obviously, been chock full o' stories on the passage of the health care bill and the lawsuits challenging its constitutionality that began rolling in literally within minutes of the President's signing it into law. Here's a link to the WSJ Law Blog post on the suit by several state attorneys general, as just an example. But there hasn't been a lot of focus on the internal political rifts that seem to be muddying the waters in at least a couple of states as to whether they wish to participate in the challenge. In Nevada, the attorney general is resisting the governor's demands to hop on the bandwagon. And in Michigan, vice versa. In both cases, the question is the same. Is the governor the client, and the AG ultimately subject to his or her demands? Or does the AG, as the state's chief legal officer, have some room to exercise independent judgment. In Nevada, AG Catherine Cortez Masto, responding to Governor Jim Gibbons (PDF), played the old Rule 11 card -- "I ain't signing it if I don't believe it." And in Michigan, Governor Jennifer Granholm used AG Mike Cox's own prior words against him, quoting him...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on March 25, 2010 (boomark / email).