Yes, Virginia, there are limits on federal power.

Today is a good day for liberty. And a bad day for those who say that Congress is the arbiter of Congress’s powers. By striking down the individual mandate, Judge Hudson vindicated the idea that ours is a government of delegated and enumerated — and thus limited — powers. Even if the Supreme Court has broadened over the years the scope of Congress’s authority to legislate under the guise of regulating interstate commerce or to tax for the general welfare, “the constraining principles articulated in this line of cases… remains viable and applicable to the immediate dispute.”

In short, we have come far from the days when pundits dismissed the lawsuits challenging the new health care law as frivolous political gimmicks. This is just one district court — whose opinion is not binding on the judges who will now consider the government’s appeal — but we can now see the day where this unprecedented assertion of federal power is definitively rejected as fundamentally contrary to our constitutional order.

As Judge Hudson said, “Despite the laudable intentions of Congress in enacting a comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds. Salutatory goals and creative drafting have never been sufficient to offset an absence of enumerated powers.”