HR 39 was passed last week by the House. The resolution calls for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) to join in the frivolous anti-health care reform lawsuits getting smacked down in federal courtrooms across the country.

With apologies to Atrios

From Representative Denny Hoskins’ (r-noun, verb, CPA) January 13, 2011 “Capitol Report”:

….The full House already voted on some bills this week.  I’m pleased to report on a resolution to urge Missouri to join 20 other state attorneys general in a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the federal health care requirement.  I voted for HCR 39 and am hopeful Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster will enter into this lawsuit to make health insurance a personal choice….

There were a few amendments. A personal favorite (from the Journal of the House [pdf] for January 11, 2011):

….Representative Kelly (24) offered House Amendment No. 4.

House Amendment No. 4

AMEND House Resolution No. 39, Page 1, Line 29, by deleting the following:

“Missouri Lieutenant Governor”, and inserting in lieu thereof the words “private citizen”….

Heh.

That amendment was further amended. And then:

….On motion of Representative Franz, House Resolution No. 39, as amended, was adopted by the following vote:

AYES: 115

Allen Asbury Bahr Barnes Bernskoetter Berry Black Brandom Brattin Brown 85 Brown 116 Burlison Casey Cauthorn Cierpiot Conway 14 Conway 27 Cookson Cox Crawford Cross Curtman Davis Day Denison Dieckhaus Diehl Dugger Elmer Entlicher Faith Fallert Fisher Fitzwater Flanigan Fraker Franklin Franz Frederick Fuhr Gatschenberger Gosen Grisamore Guernsey Haefner Hampton Harris Higdon Hinson Hodges Hoskins Hough Houghton Johnson Jones 89 Jones 117 Keeney Kelley 126 Klippenstein Koenig Korman Lair Lant Largent Lasater Lauer Leach Leara Lichtenegger Loehner Long Marshall McCaherty McGhee McNary Molendorp Nance Neth Nolte Parkinson Phillips Pollock Quinn Redmon Reiboldt Richardson Riddle Rowland Ruzicka Sater Schad Scharnhorst Schatz Schieber Schieffer Schneider Schoeller Shively Shumake Silvey Smith 150 Solon Stream Swinger Thomson Torpey Wallingford Wells Weter White Wieland Wright Wyatt Zerr Mr Speaker

NOES: 046

Anders Atkins Aull Brown 50 Carlson Carter Colona Curls Ellinger Holsman Hubbard Hummel Jones 63 Kander Kelly 24 Kirkton Kratky Lampe May McCann Beatty McDonald McGeoghegan McManus McNeil Meadows Montecillo Nasheed Newman Nichols Oxford Pace Peters-Baker Pierson Rizzo Schupp Sifton Smith 71 Spreng Still Swearingen Talboy Taylor Walton Gray Webb Webber Zimmerman

PRESENT: 000

ABSENT WITH LEAVE: 002

Funderburk Hughes

[emphasis added]

As for the frivolous part:

Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Health Care Reform Law

Doug Mataconis Wednesday, December 1, 2010

….If nothing else, this case points out just how difficult it will be for any of the Plaintiffs involved in the lawsuits against the health care reform bill to convince any Court of Appeals of the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate, not to mention the Supreme Court. In order for the Courts to do so, they are going to have to find more than 60 years of Commerce Clause jurisprudence to have been wrongly decided, and the odds of that happening seem to be slim indeed…

Uh, that’s legal talk for the lawsuits being a colossal waste of time.

And, according to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing health care reform would add significantly to the deficit:

CBO’s Preliminary Analysis of H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act

….Because CBO and JCT estimated that the March 2010 health care legislation would reduce budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period and in subsequent years, we expect that repealing that legislation would increase budget deficits. The resulting increase in deficits projected for fiscal years 2012 through 2019 is likely to be similar in size to-but not exactly the same as-the reduction in deficits that was originally estimated to result from the enacted legislation….

Impact on the Federal Budget in the First Decade

As a result of changes in direct spending and revenues, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 2012-2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion (on the basis of the original estimate), plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. Adding two more years (through 2021) brings the projected increase in deficits to something in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes….

There you have it. The federal lawsuits are a waste of time and repeal of health care reform would significantly increase the deficit. For republicans, what’s not to like?