Graham-Cassidy and the Spending Clause

by Michael Dorf

Yesterday I ran a piece on Take Care arguing that the funding formula of Graham-Cassidy violates the requirement in the SCOTUS Spending Clause cases that any conditions placed on states' receipt of federal funds must be "unambiguous." I meant to cross-post it here but then Sen. McCain announced he would vote against the bill, and so I concluded that there was no point. But it looks like Graham-Cassidy is not fully dead yet and might even come back to life in the next few days. Accordingly, I am hereby promoting my argument in the hope that, at the margin, it might affect the debate over the bill--which is plenty bad quite apart from my contention that it is unconstitutional.