Posted by Jennifer Mesko
Eighteen Democratic senators continue to ignore the fact that their home states are so opposed to President Obama’s health care law that they have sued to block it from taking effect.
The U.S. Senate voted 47-51 Wednesday on repealing the massive health care law. Fifty Democrats and one Independent opposed the repeal, while all 47 Republicans supported it. Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut missed the vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who forced a vote on the law by adding it as an amendment to another bill, said the battle is not over.
“We intend to continue the fight to repeal and replace ObamaCare with sensible reforms that would lower the cost of American health care,” he said in a video posted Wednesday.
The vote followed a federal court ruling Monday that struck down the law as unconstitutional. The Department of Justice will appeal the case — brought by 26 states — to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I believe we are looking forward to a day when the Supreme Court says to Congress, ‘You went too far. You went beyond the Constitution of this great nation,’” Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., told The Wall Street Journal.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D., Fla., introduced legislation Wednesday that would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass appeals courts and take up the case.
The 26 states that sued are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Virginia and Oklahoma are suing separately.
Source: CitizenLink, Feb. 3, 2011