Kansas Attorney General-Elect Announces Plans To Fight Health Law In Court

Challenges to the federal health law grow but a group of bipartisan lawmakers ask a judge in Florida to let them express support for the measure in that important case.

The Associated Press/Wichita Eagle: "Attorney General-elect Derek Schmidt promised Tuesday that within days of taking office, he will bring Kansas into a legal challenge of the federal health care law approved earlier this year. Schmidt said he's already consulting with other attorneys general about existing lawsuits in federal courts. A Republican, he takes office Jan. 10. Schmidt, the Kansas Senate's majority leader, unseated Democratic incumbent Steve Six, who had refused to have Kansas join other states in challenging the health care law" (Hanna, 11/17).

The Associated Press/Bloomberg Businessweek: The Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based advocacy group "is asking a federal judge for a preliminary injunction to block ... a provision [in the federal health law] that would restrict Congress' ability to repeal a new board" that will "set Medicare policy and health care payment rates" (11/17).

Stateline.org: "Though a lawsuit filed by state attorneys general over the Obama administration's new health care law is receiving the lion's share of media attention, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers also wants its voice heard in the court battle - in support of the controversial legislation. Seventy-one legislators from 26 states have asked for permission to file a legal brief in support of the health care law, according to The Hill, a congressional newspaper in Washington. The group includes representatives from a dozen states where the governor or the attorney general is already formally lined up against the law" (Gramlich, 11/17).