New health law illegal, 2 Arkansans’ suit says

LITTLE ROCK — The chairman and state director of Secure Arkansas filed a lawsuit Tuesday contending that federal healthcare revisions signed into law last month violate the U.S. Constitution by requiring citizens and legal residents to carry health insurance or pay additional taxes or a penalties.

Secure Arkansas Chairman Jeannie Burlsworth and the group’s state director, Todd Sharp, said in their suit that the Constitution doesn’t authorize the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty,that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health-care coverage.

The two filed as individual plaintiffs, not in their capacity as representatives of Secure Arkansas, a self described grass-roots group that has proposed ballot measures aimed at barring certain state services to illegal aliens and thwarting the federal health-care law.

In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock,the two said the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exceeds Congress’ powers under Article 1 of the Constitution and the Commerce Clause and violates the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Burlsworth and Sharp, both of Little Rock, are represented by attorney Chris Stewart of Little Rock. The suit names as defendants U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., didn’t return a phone call Tuesday afternoon seeking comment on the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Burlsworth and Sharp are asking a federal court to certify the case as a statewide class-action lawsuit; declare unconstitutional the federal law’s individual mandate that people enter into a private contract to purchase health-care insurance; rule on whether people must buy health coverage or be required by the federal government to pay a monetary or criminal penalty; and for reasonable attorney fees and costs.

Burlsworth said she seeks to have the entire federal law declared unconstitutional through the suit.

Burlsworth and Sharp filed their lawsuit after Arkansas Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel twice rejected Secure Arkansas’ proposed constitutional amendment that aimed to thwart the health-care law. In turning aside the group’s proposed popular name and ballot title for the proposed constitutional amendment, McDaniel cited ambiguities in the text of the ballot proposal.

McDaniel, a Democrat, has also said he won’t join any challenge to the new law and called such a suit frivolous. His spokesman, Aaron Sadler, said Tuesday that the filing of a lawsuit hasn’t changed McDaniel’s position.

On Tuesday, Matt De-Cample, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, called the suit by the Secure Arkansas officials “a part of the American process.

“If any citizen feels they have been wronged, they can have their day in court and pursue legal action,” he said.

With a few dozen supporters behind her at a news conference in Little Rock, Burlsworth said she and Sharp are following the lead of officials in about 20 states who have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the federal law.

“We believe as citizens of this state and of this nation that we have been left no choice [but] to face this challenge,” she said. “This health-care law would seek to impose an unprecedented mandate by the federal government while chipping away at the Constitution and the belief that limited government is good government.”

Burlsworth said she and Sharp have been told that their lawsuit and the suits filed by officials from other states are frivolous and without merit.

But she said, “We would not be going down this road if we didn’t believe in our hearts that we have a case.”

Afterward, Burlsworth said Secure Arkansas is raising money for the lawsuit, but not through its ballot question committee, which is gathering signatures to qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at barring certain state services for illegal aliens. In its latest report, the committee reported a cash balance of $350.52 through March 31.

Sharp said Secure Arkansas would accept donations for the lawsuit as a nonprofit group. He said he’s hoping some other similar groups might be “piggybacking with our class-action lawsuit.”

Republican congressional candidates Tim Griffin and Scott Wallace, both of Little Rock, said after Secure Arkansas’ news conference that they attended to show their support for the lawsuit filed by Burlsworth and Sharp.

Griffin, an attorney and former interim U.S. attorney, said he believes there are some legitimate challenges to the federal health-care law, particularly in connection with the Commerce Clause.

“I certainly believe it is worth trying,” he said.

The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

The lawsuit said the federal health-care law is not within the commerce power of Congress and, thus, the law violates the Commerce Clause. The new federal law is intended to regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause and an individual’s entrance or failure to enter into a contract for health insurance is not an activity that is “economic” in nature or part of a “class activity” that “substantially affects interstate commerce,” the suit said.

Wallace, a Little Rock restaurant owner, said McDaniel should have joined the lawsuit filed by other attorneys general “just to see what thereal constitutionality of the health-care package is.

“I don’t think it is frivolous at all,” he said of the lawsuits.

But Democratic congressional candidate David Boling of Little Rock, a former chief of staff for outgoing U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder of Little Rock, said the federal health-care law is a good one and it’s entirely within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution.

“These people are wrongly suing to allow insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, to keep young people from remaining on their parents’ policies longer, and to keep the Medicare prescription drug gap that threatens seniors,” he said.

Burlsworth said later, “We agree there needs to be reform, but not this one.”

Democratic congressional candidate Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, who is a state senator, said the nation “is badly in need of health-care reform” and the new law “is merely a start towards addressing access to health care for all Americans.

“Throwing up legal roadblocks will not help one American have access to good health care,” she said. “This is just one more way of engaging in obstruction rather than in constructive ways of making Washington work for families and individuals.”