Personhood USA co-founder Keith Mason (Photo: personhoodusa.com)

Undaunted by the failure of similar initiatives across the country, Virginia legislator Bob Marshall has introduced a bill that would define life as beginning at the moment of conception.

As the law reads, unborn children at “every stage of development” would enjoy “all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the commonwealth, subject only to the laws and constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the commonwealth.”

Marshall is known for being outspoken when it comes to abortion, but many pro-lifers find fault with personhood initiatives like his. Critics, including the group National Right to Life, say passage of such a bill could backfire, further strengthening Roe v. Wade.

A similar personhood initiative recently failed in Mississippi, despite a significant amount of support from state leaders — some of whom didn’t necessarily endorse it, but voted for it anyway.

In Georgia, two state lawmakers recently announced their intention to file similar measures, which would grant full individual rights to fertilized without the vague language of Mississippi’s Amendment 26. The leader of Florida’s Personhood affiliate told The Florida Independent that his group would begin a two-year push for a personhood bill in 2012, aiming for ballot placement on Florida’s 2014 ballot.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (Photo: myfloridalegal.com)

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is slated to co-host a Republican presidential candidate forum on Fox News’ Huckabee this Saturday, exactly one month before the Iowa caucuses. Bondi will interview candidates alongside Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Candidates Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have all been confirmed for the event. No word on whether or not one-time frontrunner Herman Cain, who is currently being dogged by accusations of a longtime affair with a Georgia woman, will also appear. According to The New York Times, the network is also awaiting responses from Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman.

“This forum is an excellent opportunity to engage each of the candidates in a candid conversation about issues that are important to voters in our state and across the nation,” Bondi said in a press release sent out by the Republican Party of Florida. “This will be a historic election, and I am excited to play a part in helping voters gain a better understanding of candidates’ beliefs on fundamental issues such as constitutionalism and the role of government.”

Bondi appeared alongside many of the GOP presidential contenders in August, when she spoke at CPAC FL. During the event, Bondi sat on a panel that discussed  strategies to end “unconstitutional ObamaCare.”

The forum will take place at 8 p.m. Sat., Dec. 3.

On Election Day 2011, when Mississippians voted down the “personhood” amendment that would have criminalized abortion and, potentially, common forms of birth control, the political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) launched the Women Are Watching (WAW) campaign, a social-media project intended to educate and engage Planned Parenthood supporters throughout the country.

According to a press release, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) will run online banner ads highlighting “Champs” and “Chumps” of reproductive rights.

Current “Chumps” featured include GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, as well as U.S. Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa), Allen West (R-Fla.), Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.). “Champs” include President Obama, U.S. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.); and U.S. Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.); and former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, who is running for Congress as a Democrat.

In an editorial for the Huffington Post published Tuesday, PPFA President Cecil Richards wrote:

Over the past year, we have witnessed the most aggressive legislative attacks on women’s health and rights in a generation. The 2010 elections dramatically changed the U.S. Congress and state legislatures nationwide, leading to a wave of efforts to restrict access to vital women’s health care, including lifesaving cancer screenings and birth control. … [M]ore than 1,000 reproductive health bills have been introduced in legislatures across the country, the majority of which seek to undermine women’s health.

These attacks on women’s health are unacceptable and we’re putting anti-women’s health candidates from both parties on notice. Women Are Watchingwill work to ensure that politicians who play politics with our health are defeated and to support candidates who fight for the care women need to stay healthy.

Planned Parenthood saw victory Tuesday night with Mississippi’s “personhood” rejection and with Democratic victories in Kentucky (Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear was re-elected), Iowa (Democrats retained control of the state Senate) and New Jersey (Democratic control expanded in the state Senate).

However, Virginia is now completely controlled by the Republican Party, which won seats in the already GOP-majority House of Delegates and appears to have tipped the balance of power in the state Senate from Democrat to Republican, with the election of Republican Bryce Reeves over incumbent Sen. R. Edward Houck of District 17. The national anti-abortion-rights group the Susan B. Anthony List claims to have spent $25,000 in radio, TV and mailer ads against Houck’s reelection.

Planned Parenthood is also watching various states in 2012, including:

• Pennsylvania: Bills have been introduced to enforce new regulations on abortion clinics and to require women to receive state-mandated information about abortion.

• Florida: In 2012, Floridians will vote on a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to prohibit public funding of abortions, which is already illegal, but more significantly the bill would “prohibit the State Constitution from being interpreted to create broader rights to an abortion than those contained in the United States Constitution” — thus rolling back a constitutional privacy right in the state constitution that currently provides more protection for women than the U.S. Constitution does. A “personhood” amendment just like Mississippi’s will also be on the ballot.

• Planned Parenthood is also “watching” New Hampshire, which severed a decades-long family-planning contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England this year; Ohio, which introduced the controversial “heartbeat bill;” and Texas, which slashed the state’s family-planning budget from $111 million to $38 million and passed a mandatory ultrasound bill (many of the provisions of this law were struck down by a federal judge).

But in the U.S., a different news advisory was released to media firms and to the public — one with a more generic headline and with the reference to humiliating authorities deleted.

According to Department of Justice records, the firm behind this PR turn-about is Qorvis Communications, a United States public relations firm that provides “press and public relations services” for Bahrain and which has worked with the country since 2002. The firm also has a contract to provide similar services for the Yemeni government’s “National Awareness Authority,” a state communications arm founded by Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, nephew of the vacated President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose regime has been repeatedly condemned for human rights abuses. In the last year, the countries paid more than $500,000 to Qorvis.

An investigation by The American Independent with research assistance provided by the Project on Government Oversight found that the state of Virginia also currently employs Qorvis’s PR services. All told, the state has had slightly more than $70 million in dealings with the company.

Virginia’s contract dates to 2007 (link), when the state awarded the firm an approximately $2 million per year contract to provide “marketing, advertising and communications” services, in addition to $18 million per year in media and production costs handled by the company. The firm’s contract was renewed in 2010, with an agreement to provide only “communications” services, and at the cost of $300,000 per year. Qorvis’s contract will be up for second renewal in April, 2012.

Since the firm’s work began, Virginia has since had record-breaking lottery sales, netting $1.4 billion during the last fiscal year — $444.2 million of which the state put towards education. Jeff Caldwell, press secretary for Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who appointed the head of the lottery, declined to comment on the relationship, saying “this contract predates this administration.”

"Beating marks on the back of Nabeel Rajab after police attacked a peaceful protest on July, 15 005" Img via Bahrain Center for Human Rights

A portfolio of the work Qorvis provided to the state can found on Qorvis’s website. Jill Vaughn, director of communications for the lottery, said the firm “help[s] us day to day. If we have a crisis they are very helpful, and we have a lot of special projects throughout the year.” In the last year, the firm has worked on marketing events and promotions — especially for new products. Qorvis did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Both Bahrain and Yemen have come under scrutiny of late for perceived human rights abuses. Yemen, in particular, has been censured by the United Nations for the killing of a journalist and for stifling free speech. The government of Bahrain, long seen as a U.S. ally in the region, has of late been harshly criticized. Freedom House, a human rights watchdog, issued a policy brief today titled “Killing the Messenger: Bahrain’s Brutal Crackdown,” detailing state violence and torture and calling for the U.S. to apply pressure to the country.

According to the New York Times, rights groups estimate that since protests began, “at least 34 people have been killed, more than 1,400 have been arrested and as many as 3,600 have been dismissed from jobs” in Bahrain. Earlier this fall, Doctors Without Borders and other medical groups were pitched in a fight with the country over the torture and imprisonment of doctors who had treated ailing protesters. And according to Reuters, the leader of a fact-finding mission setup by the country to investigate allegations of human rights violations now believes “torture had been a systematic, though limited, policy.”

Amateur video shot earlier this year and posted on LiveLeak appears to show protesters killed in drive-by shootings conducted by the police.

“Bahrain is taking a turn for the worse on human rights,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a release this April.  The Obama administration suspended and is reviewing its arms sales policy to the country after a number of U.S. senators, including Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senate Foreign Relations Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee chairman Robert Casey (D-Pa.) called for a cessation. Bahrain’s internal fact-finding commission, and subsequent review of alleged torture, is being closely watched by the U.S. as it determines whether to renew its arms agreement.

Virginians alerted to the dealings often expressed exasperation at the state’s use of resources. In some cases, though, the reactions were more personal.

Robert Marrow, board of trustees and chair of the government relations committee at the Adams Center, a northern Virginia mosque and one of the largest Muslim community centers in the United States, said that some of his community members fled from the regimes whose “image” Qorvis’s services are meant to enhance.

“They would oppose that if they had a say,” he said. “Their preference would be against who have made money with blood money on their hands. And if they’re going to be providing a public service they should be people who should have a somewhat higher moral standard.”

Rev. Eddy Aliff, executive director for the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists, said that Baptists would likely share that concern, and that he believes the state should “be putting money in the proper places to individuals who truly need that help, and I think that is how most of us who are Baptists would view it.”

Some saw it simply as a business dealing gone awry. “Virginians on a whole are slightly right of center. which means they’re more fiscally conservative than not,” explained Quentin Kidd, chair of the Department of Government at Christopher Newport University.

For Imad Damaj, president of the Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs, the business fundamentals don’t add up.  “My suggestion is to the state of Virginia is to look into this company and see if you can do business with another one that is not doing these things,” he said. “It is morally right and from a business perspective it is right.”

The Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that looks into the effective use of taxpayer resources and which provided The American Independent with records of Qorvis’s PR work for Bahrain, urged transparency on the issue. Ben Freeman, a national security fellow, said, “Virginia residents, whose money is used to pay Qorvis, have a right to know that the company also works to control the media spin for governments that many believe to be guilty of human rights violations.”

Qorvis has repeatedly come under the spotlight for its employment by autocratic regimes, beginning in 2002 when the company was hired by Saudi Arabia in the wake of 9/11 for the purposes of improving the country’s image after it was revealed the majority of hijackers had been of Saudi origin. While a number of firms perform this type of work, often the transactions go more smoothly. Three of the firm’s partners soon left Qorvis out of discomfort with the relationship. Shortly after, the FBI searched the company’s offices.

That scenario repeated itself this spring when more than a third of the firm’s partners left amidst concern about Qorvis work for Middle East regimes with troubled human rights records. “I just have trouble working with despotic dictators killing their own people,” a former Qorvis insider told The Huffington Post.

According to that same insider, Qorvis’s Geo-Political Solutions (GPS) division has a ‘”black arts” program responsible for creating fake blogs and websites that link back to positive content, “to make sure that no one online comes across the bad stuff.”

Last month The New York Times, commenting on the work of foreign relation firms such as Qorvis in Bahrain, reported about a surge in Bahraini trolls — social media users who “cajole, harass and intimidate commentators and journalists who write about the protests in Bahrain and the government’s response.” Guardian writer Brian Whitaker, who has extensively analyzed the firm’s PR techniques, including in some of the documents referenced in the beginning of this article, blogged how Qorvis attempts to present Bahrain as a tolerant country.

The firm’s founder and CEO, Michael Petruzzello, told the Huffington Post that complaints about clientele are “ridiculous” and disingenuous, asserting that the firm’s work with international clients preceded the tenure of departing partners. And the firm’s clients also include household names such as the Dance Institute of Washington, The Washington Post, Intel and the Rosslyn Business Improvement District, according to the firm’s website.

Department of Justice files confirm that news releases issued on behalf of the “Bahrain Ministry of Interior” are issued by Qorvis. Those newswires often reach a wider U.S. audience, such as this release posted by the Sacremento Bee.

Other examples of the firm’s work include a press release dated June 24 that describes the sentencing of 21 individuals convicted of plotting to violently topple Bahrain’s government and of the country’s commitment to fair judicial process. CNN covered the same event noting that Britain’s foreign office minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, was “extremely concerned” over the sentencing and the nature of many of the charges. “It is deeply worrying that civilians are being tried before tribunals chaired by a military judge, with reports of abuse in detention, lack of access to legal counsel and coerced confessions,” he said.

This July, Bahrain had its “National Dialogue,” a program by the state that attempts to achieve national unity on issues of politics and religion. Days before this year’s “Dialogue,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner visited Bahrain to encourage the government to speak with dissenters. But the Shia-oriented al-Wefaq, the largest political opposition group in Bahrain and one of the most fervent protest voices in the country, and the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions, withdrew, claiming their concerns, including the rehiring of fired workers, had been ignored in the talks.

At that time, Qorvis issued a glowing press release on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain saying, “All the participants are actively debating the issues.” On the same day, Reuters published an article quoting a more inclusive choice of voices: “To reach a complete solution to the big problems, you have five minutes to speak? What is that?” asked Sayed al-Mousawi of the main Shi’ite opposition group Wefaq, quoted in the article. “Is this dialogue?” Two days later, Qorvis issued another press release, praising a “second successful day.”

On the ground in Bahrain, however, the results of the talks have been less than successful. Last week, according to the New York Times, Ali Hassan al-Daihi, the 70-year-old father of an al-Wefaq leader, died after being beaten by police officers the night before. In an extensively blogged post, The Times explained how mourners to his death were forbidden from returning to a symbolic square. It also showed video of police vehicles charging protesters and of a Bahrani police’s statement about its using its vehicles that way: “These allegations don’t have an iota of truth, being baseless,” the official said.

The early returns in Oklahoma, where a 5.6-magnitude earthquake near Sparks damaged buildings and rattled nerves on Saturday, are inconclusive. Much as scientists said there just isn’t enough evidence to link earthquakes this summer in Virginia in Colorado to fracking, officials over the weekend declined to connect the Oklahoma quake to the common drilling practice.

A holding pond for fracking fluids in Texas.

The process of fracking involves the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into oil and gas wells to break up tight rock and sand and free up more hydrocarbons. The fracking fluids are then stored for later use, recycled or disposed of in injection wells.

According to the Associated Press, there are 181 such injection wells in the vicinity of Saturday’s Oklahoma quake and Sunday’s aftershocks. AP also reported Oklahoma typically only experienced about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009 when that number spiked dramatically. Last year there were 1,047 small quakes in the area, prompting the installation of seismographs.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is now seeking more data on the weekend quakes in Oklahoma, a state whose panhandle region borders southeastern Colorado, where earthquakes this summer shook area residents in an area with natural gas drilling.

In August, Las Animas County, Colo., experienced a 5.3-magnitude quake, followed by a 5.8-magnitude quake in Virginia that was felt in Washington, D.C. Those quakes also prompted questions about fracking operations and injection wells.

“That process can cause very small earthquakes, but the fracking process doesn’t really, we think, induce large earthquakes,” USGS scientist Mike Blanpied said in a video chat at the time. “The thing that can induce larger earthquakes is the high-pressure waste fluid injection that’s done in some places.”

In July, the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission shut down four disposal wells and ordered a moratorium on new injection wells after earthquake swarms last spring. USGS scientists have studied earthquakes and fracking in Colorado in the past, without drawing any definitive conclusions.

“Just to be clear, the connection between fracking and fluid injection and earthquakes is an area of active research and really we’re only starting to learn about how those things are connected,” Blanpied told reporters in late August.

The USGS points to Colorado for the most infamous case of an injection well being linked to an earthquake. The U.S. Army had been disposing of toxic fluids up to 12,000 feet underground at its Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver but had to shut down the well after a 5.5-magnitude earthquake and several aftershocks.

Nevada and Virginia were the only other states to be granted less money than Florida.

The report, Federal Aid to States for Fiscal Year 2010 (.pdf), compiled the amount of money that each state received for agriculture, education, health and human services, housing and urban development, transportation and other agencies.

Florida was part of a handful of states that received significantly less money than other states for a number of programs. In particular, Florida received very little from the federal government for agriculture, housing and urban development and transportation programs.

State policy-makers in Florida have been antagonistic toward federal grants. Gov. Rick Scott and the state Legislature have expressed distaste for accepting some federal money, and have even turned away millions of dollars that were already awarded to the state — notably for health programs and transportation.

Already, state policy-makers are saying they may eschew possible federal funds that could be set aside to help the state tackle its persistent unemployment problem.

In March, Virginia Gov. McDonnell signed Senate Bill 924, a health bill requiring the Board of Health to issue regulations related to hospitals related to infection-prevention and disaster-preparedness, which was amended to reclassify abortion clinics that offer five or more first-trimester abortions per month to be regulated just like all hospitals.

The Virginia Coalition to Protect Women’s Health – which was founded earlier in the year by NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia in response to SB 924 — refers to laws that require abortion clinics to follow regulations not required by other outpatient medical facilities as ”Targeted Regulations against Abortion Providers” (TRAP).

In a media release, the Virginia Coalition said the draft regulations “threaten the continued availability of safe, legal first-trimester abortion and put politics before sound medicine. Even worse, the governor has imposed an ‘emergency’ regulatory process to create the new rules; a process that will limit time for deliberation and public input.”

Under this law, the coalition predicts health centers that provide services outside of abortion might have to close.

“The regulations are a backdoor attempt to deny women access to a safe, legal medical procedure and threaten the health and safety of Virginia women,” reads the release.

Scheduled to speak at the rally, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., are state Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond), Del. Charniele Herring (D-Alexandria), the Honorable Katherine Waddell, abortion providers Rosemary Codding and Shelley Abrams, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice‘s Marjorie Signer, and Virginia National Organization for Women’s Diana Egozcue.

Florida joined Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia this year in enacting such legislation. The report shows that many of the bills have “narrow exceptions for women’s health” and have, in effect, taken health benefits away from women. #

These laws were the result of a provision in last year’s health care reform law that allows states to ban the coverage of abortion in the exchanges the law creates. This provision was the result of Bart Stupak’s failed attempt to stall the legislation in an effort to include an all-out ban on abortion coverage in any of the exchanges the law creates. #

However, some states have enacted laws that are significantly more austere than Stupak’s amendment, which provides exceptions for the ban. #

According to the Women’s Law Center report, Oklahoma, for example, “clarified that its insurance ban applies to exchanges and narrowed it so that women who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest will no longer be able to obtain insurance coverage of abortion.” #

While most states contain exceptions for extreme situations, such as rape or incest or when a woman’s life is in danger, Louisiana and Tennessee do not. #

Florida’s law (which was recently signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott) does provide exceptions for cases of rape, incest and when the women’s life is in danger. However, efforts to also include an exception for a woman who faces a “serious risk to her health”failed right before the bill received its final vote. The provision received bipartisan support. #

According to the report, the absence of these exceptions are dangerous to women’s health: #

Only five bills have limited, narrow exceptions for women’s health. This means that almost all of the bans prohibit insurance coverage for abortions that would protect women from serious, permanent, and even life-shortening health conditions. For example, a woman for whom continuing the pregnancy will result in permanent damage to her health, such as damage to her heart, lungs, or kidneys or a pregnant woman who is diagnosed with cancer and must undergo chemotherapy will not have insurance coverage for these medically necessary abortions. In addition, some women without insurance coverage of abortion will be forced to postpone abortion care while attempting to find the necessary funds. Although abortion is an extremely safe procedure, delays in obtaining care increase the health risks of the procedure. #

The report also explains that these laws impose “high out-of-pocket costs for these services” for a lot of women and that these laws only worsen barriers to proper health care. #

On the day Obama signed the health care bill into law — March 23, 2010 — Liberty University, represented by its partner institution Liberty Counsel, filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Timothy Geithner, secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department; Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services secretary; Hilda L. Solis; Labor Department secretary; and U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., for allegedly violating constitutional rights by implementing individual and employer mandates. After failing in district court, Liberty University has appealed (PDF) the case.

Listen to Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law, argue before a three-judge panel.

Oral arguments for Liberty University, Inc. v. Timothy Geithner:

Also on March 23, 2010, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli sued Sebelius, challenging the health care act’s individual mandate. On Tuesday, Cuccinelli also appealed to the panel. Both Cuccinelli and Liberty hope their cases will reach the U.S. Supreme Court by year’s end.

Listen to oral arguments for Commonwealth of Virginia, Ex Rel. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II v. Kathleen Sebelius:

“Today we took Step Two in a three-step process,” said Cuccinelli in a news conference following the arguments. “As Judge Motz noted, the legal questions raised today are questions that will be answered in another court in another time.”

Cuccinelli offered an overview of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s case during the news conference:

Virginia has argued that the mandate that every person must buy government-approved health insurance violates the Constitution. Using the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to force people to buy a product goes beyond Congress’s power. This is why I have said all along that this is about liberty, not health care. The insurance mandate penalizes people for not engaging in commerce. In other words, you can get fined for doing nothing.

Virginia has also argued that the penalty the government wants to charge if you do not buy health insurance is not a tax. The government cannot start calling the penalty a tax to try to make it legal under Congress’s taxing authority. Congress and the president passed it as a penalty, not a tax; it works as a penalty, not as a tax.

[...]

If we cross this constitutional line with health care now – where the government can force us to buy a private product and say it is for our own good – then we will have given the government the power to force us to buy other private products, such as cars, gym memberships, or even asparagus. The government’s power to intrude on our lives for our own good will be virtually unlimited.

[...]

You heard about standing today. The federal government thinks it can tell the states to disregard their own laws – like it is doing with Arizona, but then also says the states do not have the same right to challenge federal laws in court. That is not how our system of government is set up. The founders set it up so the states were a check on potentially overreaching federal authority.

I have said all along that this lawsuit is not about health care. It is about liberty. At the same time, I understand that people want more affordable health care, and I sympathize with people who honestly cannot afford it. As a state senator, that was a problem I tried to address by trying to pass a law to allow our citizens to buy better or cheaper plans in other states. But as someone who has sworn to uphold the law, I cannot endorse taking away the rights of all so that government can provide health care to some.

When a ruling will be issued from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is unknown. All three judges were appointed by Presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. The panels are chosen randomly.

Partner institution Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm that traditionally defends right-wing causes, is representing the university and two private individuals, Michele Waddell and Joanne V. Merrill, in the lawsuit (PDF), which was first filed by Liberty Counsel on March 23, 2010, the same day President Obama signed the health care bill into law. The federal suit, first filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, challenges both the individual and employer mandates and centers around the complaint that the faith-based university could not refuse insurance companies that cover abortion or other health care services the university considers objectionable. Liberty Counsel argued that the new health care law violates the university’s rights as a religious institution but lost the case.

Liberty Counsel has since appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. the oral argument in the appeal will be heard at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., to be followed by a press conference.

In a press statement released Monday, Liberty Counsel said it expects a ruling to be decided by the end of the year at the case will likely move on to the Supreme Court.

“I am looking forward to the argument tomorrow,” said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law, in the statement. ”This massive health insurance law goes beyond the outer limits of the Constitution. It is a big step toward a centralized government. The stakes riding on this lawsuit are high. This case goes beyond health insurance and is more about the role of the federal government to control private decisions and burden the free enterprise system.”

Specifically, plaintiffs are suing U.S. Treasury Department secretary Timothy Geithner, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Department secretary Hilda L. Solis and U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and claiming that certain provisions of the health care act violate the following constitutional amendments in the Bill of Rights:

• First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
• Fifth Amendment: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
• 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Liberty Counsel has also argued that the university should be exempt from the health care act under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997). In February, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief, arguing that religious beliefs should not dictate access to health care service for others.

This lawsuit represents the first challenge to the health care law to be argued at the appellate level.

A separate suit, which will be heard in the same court following Staver’s testimony, Commonwealth of Virginia, et al. v. Kathleen Sebelius, challenges the individual mandate in the health care act  but not the employer mandate.