Suing Over Healthcare

The health care debate was, of course, saturated in political posturing. And passage of the bill has done nothing to sate the appetite of a political class eager to strike a pose. Exhibit A: the 14 Republican attorneys general who filed or joined suits challenging the constitutionality of the reform bill.

Legal experts agree the legal challenges have little chance of success. But suing made for an easy way to rack up political points with the base.

In a handful of states, the GOP attorneys general have engaged in nasty tiffs with Democratic governors over the suits - and who, exactly, should have the final say on joining. And in Georgia, the opposite is happening: a Democratic attorney general who has dismissed the suits as "frivolous" is under heavy attack from a Republican governor and GOP legislators, a passel of whom have called for his impeachment.

In Rhode Island, the politics of health care law suits have not won much attention. But they provide an interesting window onto local politics. Attorney General Patrick Lynch, a Democrat running for governor, released a curious statement on the matter shortly after the main bill passed but before a supplementary bill of fixes made its way through Congress. He pooh-poohed those who had called his office demanding that he join the suit - with sometimes strong language - but focused on a lawerly argument: the legislation had not yet been passed, in final form, and it would be premature to make any constitutional judgments.

Lynch was a bit stronger in an interview that showed up on the ProJo's political blog. But his prepared statement spoke to the lawerly limits imposed by the office - and, to a degree, by the pol himself - on a candidate who has tried to stake out ground as the progressive pit bull in a gubernatorial primary fight with the more conservative Frank Caprio.

State Representative Peter Kilmartin, a Democrat running for attorney general, took a more straightforward shot at the lawsuits, calling the legal challenges "nothing more than political stunts aimed at keeping America from moving toward a stronger future."

Republican candidate for Attorney General Erik Wallin, meanwhile, issued a standard GOP statement - calling the health reform bill an "unconstitutional" infringement on "individual liberties" and "states' rights" and urging Lynch to join the suits against it. It was a risky bit of partisanship in a deep blue state. Indeed, recent polling shows solid support for the health care bill in Rhode Island - and the limits on what GOPers can say here, even amid strong anti-incumbent feeling.