Va. begins courtroom assault on federal health-care overhaul

Via Robert S. McCain for the heads up on this Washington Post story:

The legal challenge to the nation's new health-care law was launched Thursday in a courtroom in Richmond, where the office of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II argued that the measure is an unprecedented overreach by Washington that violates the founders' intention of a limited federal government.

Arguing the case for Virginia, Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell Jr. told a judge that it would be "unprecedented," "ahistorical" and "radical" for the federal government to require an individual to buy a private product -- in this case, health insurance.

In front of a packed courtroom -- with spectators overflowing into a second room and supporters of the federal law demonstrating outside -- attorneys for the Obama administration responded that the Virginia suit has no merit and should be tossed out of court. They said the law's mandate that Americans buy health insurance was well within Congress's constitutional power.

You'll want to read McCain's post and the whole Washington Post article.