Judge Vinson Fails to Apply the Two-By-Four

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Like the farmer in that old gag about the proper management of mules, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson tried to be polite to the Obama Justice Department. On January 31, he ruled ObamaCare unconstitutional but stopped short of granting the plaintiffs in State of Florida v. U.S. Department Health and Human Services an outright injunction against further implementation. Instead, he awarded them "declaratory relief." This, as Judge Vinson explained at the time, is the "functional equivalent of an injunction" because there is a presumption that "officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court." In other words, the judge was asking them nicely to halt implementation of ObamaCare until the appeals process had run its course. Vinson failed to realize, however, that he was dealing with a particularly vicious specimen of that famously stubborn beast -- the government mule.

And the beast remained true to form. The Obama administration made no effort to halt implementation of the unpopular health care law. In fact, the President and his health care bureaucrats openly declared their intention to move briskly forward with their plans to foist ObamaCare on an unwilling electorate. Moreover, when two states announced that they would treat the ruling as an injunction unless and until a higher court overruled the decision, the Department of Justice (DOJ) had the audacity to present Judge Vinson with a motion to clarify: "This motion respectfully asks the Court to clarify the scope of this order, in particular that its declaratory judgment does not relieve the parties to this case of any obligations or deny them any rights under the Affordable Care Act while the judgment is the subject of appellate review." In effect, the DOJ asked Vinson to issue a stay against his own ruling.

[clearvision]

I wonder if this is not better than if he had not done a stay. He is requiring them to appeal, get this thing moving to higher courts quickly. It is not clear what jurisdiction his ruling has on other states, versus just Florida, so if he can help move the higher court decisions sooner....