Legal News

Why Cordray Said ?No Way? to Suit Challenging Health Bill

By Ashby Jones

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray is a Democrat. So it’s probably not entirely surprising that he didn’t sign on to the lawsuit filed last Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of the health-care law. Thirteen state AGs did, and all but one were Republicans.

But in explaining his decision not to sign onto the suit, Cordray didn’t say he loved the bill, or that he as supporting President Obama, necessarily. No, according to this post at the BLT Blog, his clerkships — with Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy — were a larger part of the reason why.

According to the post:

[Cordray] said [his clerkship] experience taught him about the importance of precedent and leads him to think that the lawsuit by 13 other state attorneys general is likely to be thrown out because of prior rulings by the Court.

"It would require tearing up decades of contrary precedent," Cordray said in a conference call with reporters. He added that he’d rather spend time on other issues, like consumer protection.

Despite that he’s got a “D” attached to his name, there was no shortage of Republican lawmakers in Ohio trying to get him to sign on to the lawsuit. Partly for that reason, Cordray felt he needed to give a public, formal response. "I work with these individuals who have made this request on a daily basis. I have great respect for them," he said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).