Law Offices of David Yerushalmi Joins Forces with Thomas More Law Center to File Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction to Stop Obamacare
April 6, 2010 – Ann Arbor, Michigan: Moments after President Obama signed the so-called health care reform bill into law in a televised White House ceremony, the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. joined forces with the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor Michigan, to file a federal lawsuit challenging its constitutionality in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Then, on April 6th, the same legal team filed a motion for preliminary injunction asking the court to rule quickly to enjoin the Obama administration from putting the law into place. The motion brief prepared by attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise is one of the clearest statements about why this law, often referred to as Obamacare, manifestly violates the U.S. Constitution:
If we are permitted to remove ourselves from the political factors weighing for or against health care reform, one statement is entirely uncontestable and, as a result, not subject to serious challenge: The federal government has never in the history of the United States attempted to stretch the Commerce Clause to include the regulation of inactivity, or in effect, mere “existence” or residence within our Nation’s boundaries.
For the first time in our history, Congress has cited the Commerce Clause as authority to regulate a man or woman sitting in the privacy of his or her own home doing absolutely nothing but breathing. No previous interpretation of the Commerce Clause has ever allowed this reach. And, more importantly, if this is what the Commerce Clause has come to mean, it means the Commerce Clause is the enumerated power of the federal government without the need for any other enumerations because it would permit absolute power, save the exceptions carved out by constitutional amendments, such as the Bill of Rights. In this new scheme of governance, individual liberty is the exception against the backdrop of the federal government’s plenary authority to regulate every aspect of our lives—including our choice to refrain from acting.
In the final analysis, this expansion of power effectively converts our Republic, designed as a federal system with a limited national government, into a single omnipresent national polity with absolute power to regulate all spheres of human existence. Indeed, even the promulgation and enforcement of regulations once considered strictly within the confines of State and local governments under the rubric of police power, such as local sanitation codes, zoning ordinances, and municipal building codes, all would fall within Congress’ power should that power include the ability to impose regulations such as the Individual Mandate at issue here. Quite simply, if this is what the Commerce Clause means, then the federal government has the authority to regulate any and all behavior imaginable—including inactivity, as in this case. Liberty is no longer an unalienable right possessed by the individual, but a political privilege or license granted by the State—that being the federal government. This state of affairs effectively reverses the American Revolution and terminates the great experiment founded in the constitutional republic begun by our Founding Fathers.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Law Center itself, and four individuals from the Southeastern Michigan area. None of the individuals have private health care insurance; all object to being forced to purchase health care coverage; and all object to being forced to pay for abortions, which is contrary to their religious beliefs.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are President Obama, Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney General; and Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Department of Treasury. All the defendants were sued in their official capacity.
David Yerushalmi commented, “This Act is the perfect expression of our times. It is the ‘democratization’ of all of human existence. If you can generate a majority to vote for a law granting government ever more power, it is constitutional because the law knows no limits other than the counting of votes in Congress.”
Yerushalmi continued, “If Congress has the power to regulate mere existence or breathing in one’s home simply because a majority in Congress thought it apt, then it has the unconstrained power to mandate every American take a certain regimen of vitamins or to buy a General Motors vehicle to help the economy; and if you refuse, you pay a federal penalty.”
Robert Muise, the Law Center’s Senior Trial Counsel, and David Yerushalmi prepared the lawsuit and the motion papers.
According to the legal briefs, the health care reform law imposes unprecedented governmental mandates that trample upon the personal and economic freedoms of Americans in violation of their constitutional rights.
[See above to download a copy of the complaint and the motion for preliminary injunction].
Among the allegations of the lawsuit are the claims that Congress had no authority under the Commerce Clause to pass the law; that by usurping the power reserved for the states and the people, Congress violated the Tenth Amendment; and that by forcing private citizens to fund abortion contrary to their rights of conscience and the free exercise of religion, Congress violated the First Amendment.
About David Yerushalmi, Esq.: David Yerushalmi has been practicing law for more than 25 years. He is a litigator specializing in securities law, public policy relating to national security, and public interest law. Mr. Yerushalmi is licensed and practices in Washington D.C., New York, California, and Arizona and currently serves as General Counsel to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., one of the nation’s leading national security think tanks founded by former Reagan administration official Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., and has been Of Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor for Policy Affairs to the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (Potomac, Maryland) since 1988.
