Pete Sessions: “This is a fundamental question. The Constitution gives the U.S. Government the right to regulate interstate commerce…”

“This is a fundamental question. The Constitution gives the U.S. Government the right to regulate interstate commerce, that is true. The Supreme Court, at times, has taken a most minimal effect on interstate commerce and says the Federal Government can regulate it. But I am not aware of a circumstance in which an individual in Wyoming, or Alabama, minding their own business and not participating in an interstate commerce health insurance policy in any way, and the Federal Government waltzes in and says you must participate in this in interstate commerce--you are not participating in it and they require that you do participate in it. If you believe--and there is only one view--that the Constitution is a government of limited power, it has only powers that are delegated to it--and they are enumerated powers--then have we crossed a divide here that we have not crossed before. That is why these lawsuits are being filed. They are very real. The one in Florida may be farther along than most of them; it is already out there. Ms. Kagan, at this very moment, sits as a Solicitor General of the United States--in title, if not fully acting--and was, I think, before this lawsuit was filed fully acting, and it impacts the Federal Government. The question we have asked that I think must be answered by her is exactly what kind of relationship and discussion she may have had concerning this legislation.”