An online New York Times story reports on a coordinated effort by conservative state lawmakers and the American Legislative Exchange Council to pass state constitutional amendments that would require people to purchase health insurance.
In more than a dozen statehouses across the country, a small but growing group of lawmakers are pressing for state constitutional amendments that would outlaw a crucial element of the health care plans under discussion in Washington: the requirement that everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty.
Approval of the measures, the lawmakers suggest, would set off a legal battle over the rights of states versus the reach of federal power — an issue that is, for some, central to the current health care debate but also one that has tentacles stretching into a broad range of other matters, including education and drug policy....
So far, the notion has been presented in at least 10 states (though it has already been rejected or left behind in committees in some of them), and lawmakers in four other states have said they will soon offer similar measures in what has grown into [ALEC's] coordinated effort at resistance. (Arizona, which has placed the amendment on its ballot in 2010, seems the furthest along.)
The remainder of the article focuses on efforts to pass state constitutional amendments in Minnesota and Arizona and comments by constitutional scholars on the idea.
Comments