(Washington, DC) - Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), former Chairman and current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, applauded U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson's ruling Monday in Florida that the individual mandate in the $2.6 trillion health law that requires every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine is unconstitutional.

"The ruling affirms that the Constitution is not in the eye of the congressional beholder, that the Constitution establishes real limits that the federal government must obey,” Hatch said after Vinson’s decision. “If Congress had taken the Constitution seriously two years ago, we would already have in place commonsense solutions to our healthcare problems that did not undermine the Constitution or individual liberty.

“Simply put, Congress does not have the legal authority to tell Utahns and other Americans that they must buy health insurance or else,” Hatch added. “The Constitution empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but not to tell the American people what they must buy.”

Hatch was the first U.S. senator to publicly state that the individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional. An original plaintiff, Utah is one of 26 states in the lawsuit against ObamaCare that was filed in the U.S. District Court of Florida. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and individual citizens are also part of the lawsuit.

This past November, Hatch joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in circulating a friend-of-the-court brief in this case with the support of 32 Senate colleagues.

Last week, Hatch reintroduced the American Liberty Restoration Act (S.19), which would repeal the unconstitutional individual insurance mandate. The National Retail Federation, Americans for Tax Reform, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Federation of Independent Business have endorsed S. 19.