RUSH: ‘In a decision that could lay the groundwork for an Arizona-style immigration policy, Virginia’s attorney general said state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone ‘stopped or arrested.” And they’re doing this without a law because there’s already a law. It’s called federal law. They’re doing this in Rhode Island. They’re doing this in a number of states. Local authorities, local law enforcement is allowed to ask if you’re illegal or not after being stopped on another violation.
‘Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued the legal opinion Friday extending that authority to Virginia police in response to an inquiry over whether his state could mirror the policies passed into law in Arizona.’ And we have a couple sound bites, number 27, 28 here, last night On the Record With Greta Van Susteren, Cuccinelli was the guest. First question, ‘This whole idea of the commerce clause,’ commerce is when there’s a substantial effect on the different states on commerce, ‘and what the judge said is that requiring a mandate is not an economic transaction.’ Now, she’s talking about the Judge Henry Hudson who said the suit against Obamacare in Virginia can go forward on the basis that the government cannot mandate that anybody buy anything based on the commerce clause, and even the administration now says, ‘Well, we’re looking at this as a tax, and we have the power to levy taxes,’ but Judge Henry Hudson said go for it, the suit can continue, and she asked for it the state attorney general about that.
CUCCINELLI: Virginia’s position is that ordering the purchase of health insurance is not regulating economic activity. What are you regulating? You’re regulating somebody doing nothing. That’s inactivity. Repose is the word he used in the opinion, a state of repose. You’re doing nothing. The commerce clause presumes the existence of not only activity, but economic activity or activity that affects economic activity, and he says doing nothing is quite a stretch to make that argument.
RUSH: So Van Susteren says, ‘I assume the attorney generals in Florida will be seizing upon that as they read this decision now and they’re probably going to seize upon that language that essentially doing nothing is not economic activity that can be regulated under the clause.’
CUCCINELLI: An interesting thing for people to think about is, if this is activity that can be regulated under the commerce clause then the federal government can reach anything. This is where you get to the massive expansion of federal power. If they can say that ordering you to do something is economic activity, ordering you into the economy, then they can order you to do anything, and we don’t any longer have a government of limited powers. That’s a major concern. If we lose this case it’s the end of federalism.
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on. This is the attorney general, Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, who also at the same time said that the police can check the immigration status of people stopped on other violations of the law — what Arizona was going to do, what they do in Rhode Island, Virginia. This was becoming a liberal base.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s a little bit more on Judge Henry Hudson’s decision not to dismiss a case that the state of Virginia filed against Obamacare. Now, this is a man who is a by-the-book, by-the-Constitution kind of judge, Henry Hudson. Thirty-two states, besides the Commonwealth of Virginia, have mounted legal and legislative challenges to Obamacare. There’s a ballot initiative today in Missouri. The residents of the state of Missouri are voting whether or not to opt out, whether they can opt out of the whole thing. That’s going to be watched as well. In addition to the 33 states that have mounted legal and legislative challenges. Now, you’ve got to imagine the momentum that this is first preliminary ruling is gonna give to other attorneys general and legislative branches, because I remember when the ruling came out yesterday, it was a big upper for a lot of us.
It was, ‘All right!’ We’re not used to things going our way in the courts, and this was huge.