Does the United States Constitution allow Congress to force people to purchase a product (health insurance) from a private corporation, and fine them or tax them if they refuse? The answer is a matter of debate, but there is little dispute that such an act of Congress would be unprecedented.
Sheldon Laskin, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who has argued that the Constitution forbids such a move, describes the new and dangerous can of worms it would open up:
It is fair to say that 2008 is shaping up to have the necessary ingredients for a Democratic mandate, but such things are never certain so it would be good to put some thought into what needs to happen for a broad mandate for progressive change.
The first thing to understand is that a mandate is a phenomenon of mass psychology and not any kind of empirical or solidly quantifiable event. It is the result of the individual beliefs of some critical mass of voters believing there is a mandate which will then move the whole zeitgeist in the media, and then in congress too. The exact size and nature of that threshold is difficult to guess, but the key ingredient is that there has to be a widespread belief in a mandate, in addition to the requisite levels of support and enthusiasm for the agenda.
