Snowe, Collins back lawsuit challenging health-care law
Washington Post ^ | 11/22/10 | Matt DeLong
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The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald reports that both of Maine's senators -- Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- are signing on to a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health-care law.
The brief was initiated by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and boasts the signatures of 30 Senate Republicans. The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general for several states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small-business trade organization.
At issue is a requirement that U.S. citizens purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a fine -- known as the "individual mandate."
As the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee who voted to move the bill -- which at the time included an individual mandate (though Snowe made clear then that she didn't support that provision) -- to the full Senate last year, Snowe was the only Republican senator who supported the bill at any stage. She did not vote for final passage of the bill in March. Snowe and Collins are widely viewed as two of a dwindling number of GOP moderates remaining in Congress.
Snowe is up for reelection in 2012, and Maine tea party groups have already pledged to mount a primary challenge. Snowe is no doubt taking the threat seriously, considering the Maine GOP adopted a tea party-backed platform this year and Paul LePage, a combative conservative candidate who promised to tell President Obama to "go to hell," won the state's gubernatorial race in November. Collins faces reelection in 2014.
UPDATE: In an interview last year with Karen Tumulty -- then of TIME and now of The Post -- Snowe voiced opposition to the individual mandate on affordability grounds, but didn't say anything about the provision's constitutionality.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.co m ...
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Great news. Repeal this traitorous mish mosh asap.
