Health Care Decision May Signal the Advance of a Broader Federalist Agenda

 National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius

By Leland Ware 

On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court issued its "Obama Care" decision. This case involved constitutional challenges to two provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly referred to as the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. The individual mandate requires most Americans to maintain “minimum essential” health insurance. Those who do not comply with the mandate must make payment which the Act describes as a “penalty.” The Medicaid expansion extends eligibility to include families making 33 percent above the poverty line. The maximum income to qualify would go from $23,050 per year for a family of four to nearly $31,000.

The Court upheld the law under Congress’s taxing powers. However, in a significant departure from longstanding precedent, the Court also held that the Act exceeded the authority granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” Chief Justice Roberts found that cases construing the Commerce Clause have described the power as reaching only “activity.” The individual mandate, in contrast, compels individ­uals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce. The majority held Commerce Clause cannot be applied to inactivity. Doing so would give the Government almost unfettered power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act. Congress could, for example, address the nation's dietary problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables.

The Government also argued that the mandate is within Congress’s enumerated power to “lay and collect Taxes.” The majority found that if an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes. Congress had the power to impose the penalty under its taxing power. 

The Court also held that the Medicaid expansion violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion. When Congress threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressur­ing the States to accept a Spending Clause program, the legislation runs counter to this Nation’s system of federalism. Under the ruling each state can decide if it wants to expand its Medicaid rolls.

This was a 5-4 decision in which Chief Justice Roberts disagreed with Justices Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, the Court’s conservative faction. It is significant that Roberts, a conservative, voted with Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan but in doing so, he interpreted the Commerce Clause in a way restricts Congressional power. This is inconsistent with 75 years of precedent and invites challenges to many federal laws that rely on the authority granted by Commerce Clause including the Civil rights laws of the 1960s. This may signal an advance in the broader Federalist agenda of constraining Congressional powers and granting more authority to states.

About the Author

Leland Ware, a member of the Board of the Southern Regional Council, is Louis B. Redding Chair and Professor for the Study of Law and Public Policy at the University of Delaware.He is the author of numerous publications, and he served as co-editor of the recently-published volume, Choosing Equality: Essays and Narratives on the Desegregation Experience.

Toby Graham Returns as Lillian Smith Book Award Juror for 2012

P. Toby Graham

Director, Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Director, Digital Library

University of Georgia

The Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice, established the Lillian Smith Book Awards in 1966 to recognize writing which extends the legacy of the outspoken writer who challenged all Americans on issues of social and racial justice.

Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. Since 2007 this partnership has also included Georgia Center for the Book, and the awards ceremony is now presented on the Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend as part of the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. Excerpts from the 2008 - 2011 awards ceremonies may be viewed through the links on this page and through the Video Bar. The 2012 awards ceremony will be held at the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur, Georgia on Sunday, September 2nd.

This year's jury will once again include Toby Graham, director of the University of Georgia's collaborative digitization program, which partners with libraries, archives, and other institutions to provide online access to key collections on Georgia history and life. Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is an initiative of GALILEO, Georgia's virtual library. The DLG endeavors to provide a seamless digital library on the state's history and culture connecting users to 105 digital collections from 65 institutions and 100 agencies of government (approx. 500K objects). http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/

Graham is Director of the Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia, which consists of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Georgiana Collection, University Archives, and Records Management.

Presenting the Lillian Smith Book Award Jurors for 2012

The Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice, established the Lillian Smith Book Awards in 1966 to recognize writing which extends the legacy of the outspoken writer who challenged all Americans on issues of social and racial justice.

Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. Since 2007 this partnership has also included Georgia Center for the Book, and the awards ceremony is now presented on the Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend as part of the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. Excerpts from the 2008 - 2011 awards ceremonies may be viewed through by clicking on the images on this page or on the Video Bar. The 2012 awards ceremony will be held at the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur, Georgia on Sunday, September 2nd.

This year’s Lillian Smith jury is again chaired by Mary A. Twining, Emeritus Professor of English and Folklore at Clark Atlanta University. Noted for her study of the Sea Island Communities of Georgia and South Carolina, and their cultural ties to West African culture, her published work has included Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, which she edited with Keith E. Baird (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press 1991); Names and Naming in the Sea Islands, a contribution to the Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture, edited by Michael Montgomery and Louise Ferrell, University of Georgia Press, 1994; The New Nomads, Art, Life, and Lure of Migrant workers in New York State, published in The Journal of the New York Folklore Society 1987; and numerous contributions to the Journal of Black Studies.

Returning juror Toby A Graham is Director of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia and Director of the University’s Collaborative Digitization Program, which partners with libraries, archives, and other institutions to provide online access to key collections on Georgia history and life. He works to provide a seamless digital library on the state's history and culture. He also serves as Co-Director and Principal Investigator for the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative, providing Web-based access to historical news film and related primary sources on the Civil Rights Movement from institutions across the United States. Toby leads digital production for Georgia HomePLACE, an innovative project which strives enhance access to local and family history resources in Georgia. He is author of A Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights in Alabama’s Public Libraries, 1900-1965.

James Taylor manages the Atlanta Fulton Public Library’s Buckhead Branch and also hosts the System’s Writers in Focus, “a meet-the-author” television show produced by Fulton County Television (FGTV) and broadcast throughout  metro Atlanta and Fulton County.  He previously managed the Library Express Department, the Circulation Department, and the Ivan Allen Reference Department

Constance W. Curry is the author Silver Rights, which won the 1996 Lillian Smith Award for non-fiction. She also co-authored Mississippi Harmony with Ms. Winson Hudson, published fall 2002. Curry also collaborated in and edited Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement (University of Georgia Press, 2000) and the book Aaron Henry: the Fire Ever Burning (University Press of Mississippi, 2000).  More recently, she collaborated with Bob Zellner on The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, which received a Lillian Smith Book Award in 2009.

Mary Twining Baird Returns as Lillian Smith Book Award Jury Chair for 2013

The Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice, established the Lillian Smith Book Awards in 1966 to recognize writing which extends the legacy of the outspoken writer who challenged all Americans on issues of social and racial justice.

Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. Since 2007 this partnership has also included Georgia Center for the Book, and the awards ceremony is now presented on the Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend as part of the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. Excerpts from the 2008 and 2009 awards ceremonies may be viewed through the links on this page and through the Video Bar.

The 2013 awards ceremony will be held at the Dekalb County Public Library in Decatur, Georgia on Sunday, September 1st.

The jury for this year's awards is again chaired by Mary A. Twining, emeritus professor of English and Folklore at Clark Atlanta University. Professor Twining previously served on the faculties of a variety of institutions including the University of Kentucky and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Professor Twining is noted for her study of the Sea Island Communities of Georgia and South Carolina, and their cultural ties to West African culture through language, cultural habits and spirituality. Her published work has included Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, which she edited with Keith E. Baird (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press 1991); Names and Naming in the Sea Islands, a contribution to the Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gulla Language and Culture, edited by Michael Montgomery and Louise Ferrell, University of Georgia Press, 1994; The New Nomads, Art, Life, and Lure of Migrant workers in New York State, published in The Journal of the New York Folklore Society 1987; and numerous contributions to the Journal of Black Studies.

She has also contributed music reviews to Southern Changes, the Journal of The Southern Regional Council.

Constance Curry is Newest Lillian Smith Book Award Juror

The Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice, established the Lillian Smith Book Awards in 1966 to recognize writing which extends the legacy of the outspoken writer who challenged all Americans on issues of social and racial justice.

Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. Since 2007 this partnership has also included Georgia Center for the Book, and the awards ceremony is now presented on the Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend as part of the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. Excerpts from the 2008 and 2009 awards ceremonies may be viewed through the links on this page and through the Video Bar.

The 2013 awards ceremony will be held at the DeKalb County Public Library on Sunday, September 1st.

Joining the jury for the first time this year is Constance W. Curry.  Ms. Curry grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina and graduated from Greensboro High School in 1951. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Agnes Scott College (1955) and held a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Bordeaux, France, during 1955-1956. She studied political science at Columbia University and received the J.D. degree from Woodrow Wilson College of Law in 1984. For two years she served as National Field Representative of the Collegiate Council for the United Nations. From 1960-1964 she was Director of the Southern Student Human Relations Project of the National Student Association and became the first white female on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). From 1964-1975, she was Southern Field Representative of the American Friends Service Committee. In 1975, she became Director of the Office of Human Services for the City of Atlanta. 

Her book, Silver Rights, won the 1996 Lillian Smith Award for non-fiction and recounts the story of one rural Mississippi family's struggle for education and for civil rights during the 1960's. She also co-authored Mississippi Harmony with Ms. Winson Hudson, published fall 2002, which told the story of Mrs. Winson a civil rights leader from Leake County, Miss.,who also challenged segregation in the 1960s. Curry also collaborated in and edited Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement (University of Georgia Press, 2000) and the book Aaron Henry: the Fire Ever Burning (University Press of Mississippi, 2000).  More recently, she collaborated with Bob Zellner on The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, which received a Lillian Smith Book Award in 2009.