MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. LAURA RICHARDSON (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, Chris, first of all, thanks for having me.

And the fact that you mentioned it"s lo and behold right in Florida causes us to have question. Not only is this judicial activism. It"s overreaching, and it doesn"t even meet the mainstream test. Not to follow precedents by Supreme Court law and not to do a true analysis, to cut out an entire bill based upon one provision is way out of bounds, even for Republicans.

MATTHEWS: What did you make of the charge that you can"t use the interstate Commerce Clause to cover all activity and non-activity; you can"t punish a person with taxation for not buying health insurance, when there"s no commerce there; the person is not buying anything? How can you say that they are included in commerce?

What do you think of that argument by the judge?

RICHARDSON: Well, I think it"s pretty weak.

All you have to look at is, in 2009 alone, $43 billion, it cost many taxpayers to pay for people who hadn"t paid for the insurance themselves. If that"s not what commerce is, I don"t know what you would call it.

We have a longstanding history of being able to utilize legislation based upon the Commerce Clause. And this is no exception. Come to my hospitals. We have got hospitals open--

MATTHEWS: I agree.

RICHARDSON: -- having to care for people because they haven"t done the preventative care themselves.

MATTHEWS: Well, you have sold me.

I want to go back to Congressman Moran on that same question.

It seems to me, if a person is willing to walk around with a sign that says, if I"m in a traffic accident, and if I have a heart attack, if I have an appendicitis attack, leave me alone and let me die because I don"t want to be part of interstate commerce--I mean, I know that"s ludicrous. But what about her--what"s your argument for why this is constitutional, if you have one?

REP. JIM MORAN (D), VIRGINIA: Well, clearly, we have determined that we"re going to provide health care when needed, even to people who don"t have insurance coverage. That means that all of us have to pay it, those of us who have insurance coverage. It"s reflected in hospital bills, it"s reflected in insurance premium, it"s reflected in property taxes because many localities pick it up.

This is a conservative even partisan interpretation of an issue, and the proponents of repeal knew once they got Judge Hudson and once they got Judge Vinson what the outcome of their ruling was going to be. The problem, though, is the Supreme Court, because that"s where it will be decided. And we"ve known since they appointed George Bush over Al Gore, despite the trend of the Florida vote counting that that at least four members of this Supreme Court are activist, conservative, even partisan.

Here you"ll have Clarence Thomas" wife, one of the founders and leaders of the Tea Party movement. Judge Scalia is in conference with Michelle Obama, talking about the Tea Party movement.

MATTHEWS: Michele Bachmann.

MORAN: You got Judge Alito publicly disputing the president at the State of the Union. Even Judge Roberts has shown himself to be a conservative activist in many of his decisions.

It"s going to be decided in a court that is divided and the only vote that really matters is Judge Kennedy"s now.

MATTHEWS: Isn"t that strange?

Congresswoman Laura Richardson of California, you"re a member of the Congress now for a couple of terms now. Doesn"t it appall the American people that once again, we"re going to have a Supreme Court decision which seems like the only independent vote is that of Judge Kennedy?

RICHARDSON: Well, it"s unfortunate because we would have all thought we have come much further. But I"m going to actually hold out for a little better hope. If you look at even President Reagan"s solicitor general, Mr. Fried, had said that there was no hope of really basing his decision on any constitutional argument.

So, I think they are way off-base this time. We"re going to hold true to Kennedy. He"s going to look at the key points of what Supreme Court justices view, precedence and analysis. In this test, it doesn"t hit on either bounds.

MATTHEWS: Well, I have a little faith as an observer like you two, I"m citizen observer. But I have a faith of--Judge Scalia has said in my presence he likes law. He does respect decisions made by Congress. He doesn"t--he has a hard time with finding rights in the Constitution like the right of a woman to choose. But he doesn"t have a problem with Congress having the right to pass law. So, maybe you have a chance here.

Let me read Judge Vinson"s ruling to both of you, starting with Congressman Moran. This suggests a political intent here. It is difficult to imagine--let read this. "It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force information buy tea in the first place."

Well, he"s certainly touching a hot rail there, Mr. Moran? Tea?

MORAN: Yes. I mean, that"s subtle. It"s clearly a nod to the Tea Party movement. That"s what he attended.

The fascinating thing, though, is that if you were to throw out the individual mandate and keep the required coverage for pre-existing conditions, it will in effect become a public option, because you can"t have one without the other. I don"t know why they don"t fully understand that.

What people will do is drop their coverage knowing that if they get sick or have an accident, insurance companies have to give them coverage. Well, every insurance company will go out of business just as every car insurance company would go out of business. And you"ll have government financed health care.

So, you either got to throw out the whole bill or you have to tell them you can"t have coverage for pre-existing conditions if we"re going to reject the concept of an individual mandate.

MATTHEWS: Well, for the right-wing point of view, that would be a revolting development.

Thank you very much, Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia, Congresswoman Laura Richardson.

RICHARDSON: Thank you for having me.

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