Judge Vinson invalidated the insurance requirement, and then ruled that the mandate was so essential to the architecture of the law that the entire act must fall.
If the court invalidates the insurance requirement, the White House and a divided Congress would be left to pick up the pieces.
A spirited debate broke out in legal blogs this month after Judge Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, Va., invalidated the insurance requirement in part by rejecting the administration's necessary-and-proper defense.
State Superintendent Raymond Barber asked the Supreme Court to clarify whether its ruling meant that all of the copies of the Commandments already posted had to be taken down or whether it simply invalidated the Kentucky requirement for them to be posted; the Court refused the request for clarification.
And three states — Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma — will be voting on largely symbolic ballot initiatives intended to invalidate the law's requirement that their residents have health insurance.
Missouri is the first of at least three states with ballot measures this year aimed at nullifying the federal health care law by invalidating its keystone provision, the requirement that most people obtain insurance or pay a tax penalty.
Virginia's attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a Republican who filed the Richmond lawsuit, argues that if Judge Hudson rejects the insurance requirement he should instantly invalidate the entire act on a nationwide basis.
Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, the chairman of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus in the Texas House of Representatives, flew to Washington this week to persuade a panel of federal judges to invalidate a requirement that voters must have an ID card.
Where the requirement for the study is a legal one, such a qualification test for placing of a material on the market or transporting it, variation in procedure may invalidate the results.
"It's critical that companies and the general public understand this ruling does not invalidate the conflict minerals rule altogether or even the majority of its reporting requirements," said Enough Project policy associate Holly Dragonis.
