Hot on the heels of a mendacious and incoherent ruling on the health care law, Judge Henry Hudson of Virginia was recently revealed to be personally profiting from his decision against individual mandates through Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
The underlying "justification" of Judge Henry Hudson's ruling is that the commerce clause of the constitution only applies to economic activity, not economic decisions. While seemingly an arcane distinction at first, it's clear upon careful reflection that the latter is broader. In particular, Hudson claims that because economic activity in health care doesn't start until you walk through the hospital doors, it's OK if you made the economic decision not to buy insurance. Presumably, buying health care is a perfectly discretionary decision in his dream world, equivalent to gum or the latest iPod nano. Forgoing health care insurance is just one of those everyday decisions that has no broader ramifications, as far as he's concerned. If you get sick, and run out of money, you can just make the "rational" economic decision to drop dead.
As Mother Jones points out, this sort of libertarianism run amok has cropped up in the past, during the so-called Lochner era, when the conservative Supreme Court would routinely rule against FDR's New Deal legislation on minimum wage, working hours, and child labor as a horrific violation of the sacrosanct "right of contract". For as we all know, twelve-year old children should have an inviolable right to work 80 hours a week in the coal mines!
In any case, the really sick part of what's happened is that he arguably has already profited from his heartless decision, and could potentially make much more. That's because it was revealed just a few hours ago by TPM that Judge Hudson is a part-owner of a GOP political consulting firm, from which he may have made up to $53,000 to date. And one of his newest clients? None other than the attorney general of Virginia -- Ken Cuccinelli. The same Ken Cuccinelli who's making lots of noise about his personal case against the affordable care act. He's already racked up $9,000 in expenses at Hudson's firm, and there's a lot more where that came from. According to this, the VA attorney general's office has an annual budget of about $36 million.
Something is rotten in the state of Virginia.