Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum Friday amended the federal lawsuit he filed challenging the constitutionality of the new health care law to add seven new states, including Georgia and Mississippi, the National Federation of Independent Business, and two individuals.
Twenty states are now party to the suit filed by Florida. Virginia has filed a separate complaint.
McCollum filed the suit March 23, just moments after the act was signed into law, alleging that the law infringes on the constitutional rights of people by mandating that all legal residents have health care coverage or pay a tax penalty. It also claims the reform act infringes on the sovereignty of the states by imposing onerous new operating rules and expenses.
Georgia and Mississippi’s Republican governors solicited outside counsel to work for free in order to join the lawsuit because their own attorneys general, who are Democrats, refused.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue assembled a team of state attorneys general that will be led by Frank Jones, who is of counsel at Jones, Cork & Miller LLP. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Michael Wallace with Wise Carter, Child and Caraway PA would represent his state.
A separate suit was filed by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli on March 23 asking the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to declare the law unconstitutional because it violates a state law that says no resident can be required to have health insurance.
