RICHMOND  -- A federal judge has denied the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss Virginia's lawsuit challenging the health care reform bill passed by Congress, setting the stage for additional legal wrangling in the high-profile case.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson's decision was released this morning, a month after lawyers from the Justice Department and the Virginia attorney general's office argued over the motion in Hudson's Richmond courtroom.
 
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the state's lawsuit shortly after President Obama signed the health care legislation in March. Cuccinelli is challenging a provision in the federal act that will require individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Virginia's legislature passed a law earlier this year that prohibits a requirement for individuals to buy health insurance.

"This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land –- the Constitution," Cuccinelli said in a statement on Hudson’s ruling.

"The government cannot draft an unwilling citizen into commerce just so it can regulate him" under the Constitution’s commerce clause, Cuccinelli said.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, who signed the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act passed by the General Assembly, also applauded Hudson’s ruling. McDonnell, a former attorney general, said the state’s case is “meritorious and constitutionally correct.”

In a 32-page opinion, Hudson ruled that the existence of the state law "is sufficient to trigger the duty of the Attorney General of Virginia to defend the law and the associated sovereign power to enact it."

A full hearing on Virginia’s lawsuit is scheduled for October. Hudson underscored that his ruling today is limited to whether Virginia has standing to challenge the federal law.

"Although this case is laden with public policy implications and has a distinctive political undercurrent, at this stage the sole issues before the Court are subject matter jurisdiction and the legal sufficiency of the Complaint," Hudson wrote.