“Virginia filed this action on March 23, 2010, the same day that the President signed the Affordable Care Act into law. The Governor of Virginia did not sign the VHCFA into law until the next day.”  This is important, the court asserted, because “the only apparent function of the VHCFA is to declare Virginia’s opposition to a federal insurance mandate. And, in fact, the timing of the VHCFA, along with the statements accompanying its passage, make clear that Virginia officials enacted the statute for precisely this declaratory purpose.”

Via The Heartlander

In ruling last week the Commonwealth of Virginia lacks standing to challenge the individual mandate provision of Obamacare, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit made a “rookie” factual error serious enough to call for invalidation of its entire decision.

Virginia had enacted a state statute — the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act (VHCFA) — declaring the individual mandate contained in the Obamacare bill did not apply to its citizens. Virginia then filed a lawsuit alleging the individual mandate violates the Commerce Clause of the United States because the federal government lacks the constitutional power to require individual citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

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According to Ben Smith of Politico, Andy Stern, longtime President of the Service Employees International Union, is rumored to be resigning from his position. From the Politico post:

Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, one of America’s most prominent labor leaders, is set to resign, according to a member of the union’s board and another SEIU official.

The President of an SEIU local based in Seattle, Diane Sosne, broke the news to her staffers at 11:35 this morning, local time.

“Last night I received confirmation that Andy Stern is resigning as President of SEIU. He has not yet made a public announcement; we will share the details as we become aware of them,” Sosne wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO.

Sosne offered no explanation for the move, but another SEIU official speculated that Stern had finally tired of the draining job.

Read the entire Politico post here.

Hmmmm…I’d speculate differently. Here are my top guesses:

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