In the last several days, 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business, and 36 Republican senators, filed amicus briefs before the Supreme Court describing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate as a coercive provision that undermines the 10 Amendment rights of the states and characterizing Medicaid expansion as an illegal “commandeering” of states’ autonomy.

Tomorrow, over 480 state legislators from all 50 states plan to respond to these charges with an amicus brief of their own. The group will contend that the ACA complies with the Constitution’s Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses and that “the idea that the federal government does not have the power to address a national problem such as the health care crisis has no basis in the Constitutions text and history”:

Ignoring this carefully calibrated constitutional balance of power, the court below and the State officials challenging the Affordable Care Act have promoted a vision of a starkly limited federal government…This deeply flawed vision has no basis in the Constitution’s text and history. …U.S. Const. art I, § 8, cl. 3… does not limit “commerce” to existing economic activity or trade, nor does the text’s use of “regulate” imply a power to prohibit but not require certain conduct. The lower court’s vision of a Commerce Clause power strictly curtailed by tests of self-initiated activity thus cannot be squared with the Clause’s text or original meaning and purpose.

Similarly, the lower court’s interpretation of the Necessary and Proper Clause is wholly unsupported by constitutional text and history. Far from the cramped vision of the Clause suggested by the court below, which would permit Congress to regulate only by using means that are themselves covered by the Commerce Clause (effectively rendering the Necessary and Proper Clause a nullity), the grant of power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” constitutionally granted powers was intended to be sweeping.

John McDonough — who played a pivotal role in passing and implementing Massachusetts’ 2006 health care reform law — makes this important point about Mitt Romney’s much maligned “I want Americans to fire their health insurers” comment: one of the few places where individuals and families really do have a choice of coverage and can “fire” their service provider and enroll in a new insurance plan without fear of being denied because of a pre-existing condition is in the governor’s home state. Until the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014, it is actually “the insurers that have the right to fire YOU– except if you live in Massachusetts or in the handful of other states which have already implemented guaranteed issue and the elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions,” McDonough notes.

That is beginning to change, however. As of the fall of 2010, the new law “has already eliminated ways that insurance companies can fire you today”:

Two of numerous examples. First, by eliminating the right of insurers to impose lifetime or annual benefit limits, insurance companies have lost the right to “fire” enrollees who cost them too much money. Second, by prohibiting the practice of “rescissions” (cancelling insurance coverage after an enrollee files a claim by finding a small inaccuracy in an individual’s coverage application), insurers have lost the ability to “fire” enrollees for the offense of filing a claim. Both of these are operative today, and Mitt proposes repealing both of these reforms.

Romney, of course, would eliminate all those protections and turn the system back to a time where insurers hold all the hiring/firing power. For more on the context of Romney’s comments and why his “fire” comments would increase health care costs for many Americans, click here and here.

Anti-abortion advocates are continuing their fight to make Ohio the first state in the country with a “heartbeat” law, which would outlaw abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This often happens so early on — six or seven weeks into a pregnancy — that the woman doesn’t even know she’s pregnant. There is no exception for rape, incest, or mental health.

Last June the Ohio House passed the bill, which has been called the “the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation,” but it has been stalled in the Senate since November.

But backers of the legislation have found a novel way of wooing lawmakers who are on the fence. They’re enlisting the help of children to deliver teddy bears with heartbeats to Senate offices:

Special deliveries were made to 33 Senate offices Tuesday as part of a new push to pass the controversial heartbeat bill in the Senate. [...]

A very active pro-life lobby returned with a renewed push for a vote in the Senate. Advocates used children delivering teddy bears with audible heartbeats to Senate offices to send the message that they want the Senate to take up the bill as soon as possible.

The group added that they’re confident they have the votes they need.

This is not the first time bill supporters have resorted to tawdry antics to push their agenda. Last year activists recruited a nine-week-old fetus to “testify” to the House Health Committee via sonogram. Several months later, when the bill was before the state senate, Republicans brought in the then-nine-week-old baby to act as a “silent witness.”

This latest gambit is equally shameless, using the children as props as much the teddy bears themselves.

The heartbeat bill is so extreme that it has actually divided the anti-abortion community in Ohio. Ohio Right to Life has withheld its support, arguing that the bill is “likely to backfire” and set back their cause. The blatantly unconstitutional legislation flouts the the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that forbids states from banning abortions until the fetus is viable, which is generally around 22 to 24 weeks.

With Mitt Romney’s win in New Hampshire Tuesday night, the GOP presidential nominating contest now moves to the more conservative states of South Carolina and Florida, where the candidates and their Political Action Committees (PAC) are already running ads attacking each other on the issue of abortion.

Fourth-place finisher Newt Gingrich is out with a 30-second ad titled ‘Change,’ targeting the former Massachusetts governor for signing a health care law that provided coverage for abortion services and includes a requirement that an advisory panel appoint one member from Planned Parenthood. “What happened after Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney changed his position from pro-abortion to pro-life,” the ad asks. “Romney appointed a pro-abortion judge, expanded access to abortion pills, put Planned Parenthood on a state medical board but failed to put a pro-life group on the same board. And Romney signed government-mandated health care with taxpayer-funded abortions.” Watch it:

Meanwhile in Florida, the pro-Romney Restore Our Future PAC is dropping two mail pieces on Florida Republicans accusing Gingrich of, in part, backing legislation “that provided tax-payer funded abortions”:

Indeed, uninsured Massachusetts residents below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) can participate in the state-subsidized Commonwealth Care program, where members receive health services by enrolling in health plans which cover a comprehensive package of benefits like “doctor’s visits, surgery, radiology and lab” and abortion services. The package of services was not specifically developed or approved by Romney — in fact he vetoed a provision for essential health benefits — but he has previously described the law as a whole as “the ultimate pro-life effort.” Section 16M (a) of Romney’s health care law, however, does state: “There shall be a MassHealth payment policy advisory board. The board shall consist of…1 member appointed by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.” But Gingrich backed the law as recently as last year and even praised Romneycare in a 2006 newsletter.

The Romney PAC is also inaccurate in its abortion charge, however. The former speaker’s support for “abortion” is merely an endorsement of Hyde amendment restrictions that would allow taxpayer funding in cases of rape and incest. As Gingrich told CBS’ Face the Nation in 1995, “I think you should have [abortion] funding in the case of rape or incest or life of the mother, which is the first step.” He has since backed down from that position, however, telling a voter in Iowa, “No, I wouldn’t make exceptions” [for rape and incest].