RE: UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

I think Garance jumps the gun a bit in concluding that Edwards' plan to attack Congress's health care coverage if they fail to pass health care reform is unconstitutional. As constitutional scholar Cass Sunstein says, it basically depends on what John Edwards plans to actually do. Edwards cannot, it's true, simply sign a piece of paper revoking Congress's health care coverage. What he can do is use his power as president to support a bill doing exactly that, taking to the bully pulpit to force such legislation atop the political conversation. And that's what his campaign says their plan is, so it all seems constitutional to me.

Now, the question then becomes whether it's a wise plan. As far as I can tell, there are two ways it could play out. In the first, Congressional Democrats see the Edwards bill as a way to pressure Republicans into voting for reform, and so they take up the legislation as a cudgel. If Republicans want to filibuster the bill, well, fine, let them. It'll make for some pretty sharp ads come 2010. The other scenario is that Edwards pisses off Congress with this bill, and no one wants to help him at all. Given that my read of the Democrats in Congress is that they're fiercely interested in passing health care reform, I have trouble seeing them abandon the cause in a fit of pique, but I suppose it's possible.

In any case, this whole conversation seems bizarrely misguided. This is political theater, a stunt meant to dramatize the inequities in our health care system and bring some populist pressure to the issue. Maybe it's a bad strategy for health care reform. Maybe it isn't. But the many, many folks aghast that Edwards would engage in such theater should worry a bit more about the magnitude of the crisis and the obstacles impeding reform and a bit less about the mechanics of what is, at base, an applause line.

--Ezra Klein