Legal Challenges to ObamaCare Continue

The Washington Post has an update on Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli's case against the new health care law:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) defended his suit against the federal health care law in a call with reporters this evening, a call designed to accompany today's filing in the case. Over the course of the call, he walked through the legal arguments of his brief, arguing Virginia has standing to sue and that the constitution's commerce clause does not give the Congress the ability to mandate that individuals buy health insurance.

"A lot of people who think we're going to lose the case essentially boil down their expectation to, 'well, the federal government always wins these things.' And that's not necessarily true," Cuccinelli said, citing two major cases over the last 15 years in which the Supreme Court has set limits on the power of Congress under the Commerce clause.

A number of libertarian-leaning legal experts have told me that although they believe the legal argument against ObamaCare is strong, they recognize that the various challenges face an uphill battle in the courts. But since that report, I think the chances that a challenge will succeed have improved somewhat (though the odds are probably still against success). You can judge the merits for yourself: Cato's Ilya Shapiro recently debated the issue against constitutional law professor Stewart Jay. As far as I'm concerned, Shapiro was the clear winner.