| Torillian said: It seems like such a strange thing to oppose because there are already tons of states that have laws just like it and noone has issues with it. Over here you can't own a car without car insurance, it's just not allowed. Although I guess the argument for how those would be different is that you don't necessarily have to own a car, but it's still extremely similar, it's the government forcing you to buy something by law. |
The argument goes that having the ability to coerce purchase (so, Massachusetts healthcare mandate, State-level car insurance law) is not protected by the Bill of Rights, but it is not an enumerated power of the Constitution, either. Therefore, the States have the ability to do it (as it's not protected in the BoR), but the Feds do not (as it is not an enumerated power).
The Feds can only legislate on areas which are allowed under the constitution, that's the idea of limited Government. The States can legislate on everything else... as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the Constitution or (constitutional) Federal law.
The reason why I put constitutional in brackets there is because, in reality, the States try not to come into conflict with all Federal laws, whether they are constitutional or not. States have the ability to nullify unconstitutional Federal laws within their jurisdiction... but there is often very little political will to do so (one example is Virginia nullifying the controversial part of the NDAA12 - which means that part of the NDAA is not the law in Virginia | I also believe that there is a movement among more conservative States to nullify some of the Fed's regulations on the second amendment - but, for the most part, they don't bother, mainly due to pressure from the Federal Government (Texas tried to nullify the TSA, for example, but the Bill failed when the Feds threatened them with "consequences").).
