Healthcare Reform Lawsuit by State Attorneys General is Political Theater

The Hill's Congress Blog has a sort of "question of the day" post they call "The Big Question." Every day, they get a bunch of policy wonks, partisans, bloggers, and experts to answer a question. I usually don't pay it much attention, because it's pretty light on the "expert" category and heavy on the "partisan" category.

This one is no different. Today's "Big Question" was "Thirteen state attorneys general have filled [sic] a lawsuit claiming that the new healthcare reforms are unconstitutional. Is this a real legal challenge or a political stunt?" They asked it of the President of the John Birch Society, a wonk at the Center for American Progress, two bloggers, two talk radio hosts, a Democratic strategist, a political science professor, and a law professor. So let's separate the wheat from the chaff.

Frank Askin, professor of law at Rutgers University, said:
I would call it a political stunt. They are confusing their policy preferences and constitutional law. While I would be the last one to provide assurances as to what the right-wing Supreme Court majority might do (I was certain the court would never stop the counting of Florida ballots and the appoint George W. Bush president in 2000), there is no support in constitutional law or history for the challenges to the healthcare legislation.

[...]

Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University, said:
In my opinion it is clearly more of a political stunt. There is little or no chance that the courts will rule the healthcare reform law unconstitutional. I believe that all of these state AGs are Republicans and that several of them are either running for reelection or for governor. These lawsuits are a good way of building support among conservative primary voters and donors, although they carry some risk of alienating voters who stand to benefit from provisions such as allowing coverage of children up to age 26, prescription aid to seniors in the donut hole, and barring exclusion of children with preexisting medical conditions from coverage. 

So, if you limit it to people who'd actually know and would give you an honest answer without spin, the answer is "Yeah, it's political theater." The answer from the Bircher is especially entertaining in its over-the-top paranoid insanity (actual quote: "The time for reversing our nation's plunge into totalitarian government is fleeting."), but giving him as much authority as a law professor is incredibly misleading and serves the public very, very poorly.

Sometimes, the reader has to be their own editor. Whittle this down to the non-propaganda and the answer becomes pretty clear.