History Frowns on Health Care Challenges
Historian Stanley Kutler puts the health care legal challenges by 14 state attorneys general in their proper historical context: The attorneys may be hoping for an assist from a radical and conservative Supreme Court, but such a decision would overturn centuries of law going back to John Marshall in 1821 and earlier.
Historian Stanley Kutler puts the health care legal challenges by 14 state attorneys general in their proper historical context: The attorneys may be hoping for an assist from a radical and conservative Supreme Court, but such a decision would overturn centuries of law going back to John Marshall in 1821 and earlier.
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...Stanley Kutler on The Huffington Post:
The history of state resistance is a minor stream of the past; states never have successfully mounted a challenge to federal supremacy. The attempts to do so occurred before 1860, at a time when a variety of centrifugal forces – political, economic, and social -threatened the integrity of the Union. But the force of arms in the Civil War assured the triumph of American nationalism, cementing the bonds of nationhood. The dubious doctrines of nullification disappeared into the ashcan of history. Calhoun, however, occasionally is resurrected, and now appears in the Republican guise of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who has reached into the ashcan to resurrect state interposition against the new health care law.
John Marshall, our first great Chief Justice, and a man intimately related to the ratification of the Constitution, methodically dissected and rejected notions of state sovereignty and interposition in an 1821 opinion. Marshall realized the stakes if such doctrines prevailed. With words today’s state attorneys general might ponder, Marshall said that “America has chosen to be, in many respects, and to many purposes, a nation . . . . The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme.” He concluded by citing the “supremacy clause:” “These States are constituent parts of the United States. They are members of one great empire – for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate.”
This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
Labor
New accounts from workers contrast sharply with what chemical giants have said on the record about safety at their facilities.
Health & Wellness
The medical evidence is clear: The coronavirus global health threat is not an elaborate hoax. Bill Gates did not create the coronavirus to sell more vaccines. Essential oils are not effective at protecting you from coronavirus. But those facts have not stopped contrary claims from spreading both on and offline.
It can feel like everyone is stewing in anxiety about COVID-19 and seeing other people freak out can make you freak out more. A psychiatrist explains this phenomenon, and how to keep it in check.
Opinion
The response to the coronavirus pandemic reveals that it’s possible to significantly reduce emissions that cause air pollution and climate change.
Agencies, local authorities and national governments do not agree on who should be quarantined or what that should actually look like.
With 17 times as many new infections outside China as in it, Italy and Iran close schools; travel and events are canceled; and markets yo-yo.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.