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ANN ARBOR, Michigan, June 30, 2011(LifeSiteNews.com) – A panel of federal appeals court judges voted Wednesday to uphold the constitutionality of the new national health care reform signed into law by President Barack Obama.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2 -1 to uphold the law in Thomas More Law Center v. Barack Hussein Obama.

This case is the first challenge to PPACA decided by a federal appellate court. Judges Boyce Martin, a Carter appointee, and Jeffrey Sutton, a George W. Bush appointee, decided that PPACA’s individual mandate to purchase private health insurance was constitutional under Congress’ Commerce Clause power.

Judge James Graham, a Reagan appointee, dissented.

The Thomas More Law Center says it intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

“If this decision is allowed to stand, we will no longer have a limited federal government of enumerated powers or even a representative form of government — we will have Congressional tyranny,” said Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center.

“Most members of Congress who voted on the Act had not even read the 2000 page bill and some didn’t care whether it was constitutional.  Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, stated that Congress had to pass the bill so that the people could find out what’s in it.”

Judge James Graham strongly dissented from the majority, arguing, “If the exercise of power is allowed and the mandate upheld, it is difficult to see what the limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause authority would be.”

“What aspect of human activity would escape federal power?”

Graham also stated that for the court, “to approve the exercise of power would arm Congress with the authority to force individuals to do whatever it sees fit.”

Judge Sutton in the majority’s decision admitted that the appeals court is “not just fallible but utterly non-final in this case,” and that the case would end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. However, he stated that the high court must “either stop saying that a meaningful limit on Congress’s commerce powers exists or prove that it is so.”

Robert Muise, the Law Center’s senior trial counsel who argued the case, stated that it was imperative for the Supreme Court to reverse the ruling, calling it a “dangerous precedent.”

“By granting Congress such broad powers under the Commerce Clause, the appellate court has created a new kind of power not previously known to the jurisprudence, which effectively grants the federal government state police power,” said Muise.

Muise said that if the courts find PPACA constitutional then federalism under the U.S. Constitution is a “dead letter law.”

Click here to read entire Court of Appeals opinion.