This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, April 15th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Justice Stephen's expansive view of government power

poses a challenge for a Democrat-controlled Senate

that will have to defend his record in pursuit of a replacement.

And with the just passed Obamacare legislation now expanding further the abused commerce

clause, what's a vulnerable incumbent senator to do.

Roger Pallon, Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Cato Institute, offers his thoughts.

Well to put this discussion in political context, I can't imagine that Democrats in the Congress

who are up for re-election could have been terribly happy by the announcement by

Justice John Paul Stevens that he would be retiring in June

because that means that they're going to have to face a Senate confirmation situation over the summer that is going to bring to the

four a number of issues, none more important after Obamacare, then are there any limits on Congress's power to regulate, redistribute,

and order one-sixth of the economy and order people to buy insurance from private companies,

failing which they'll have to pay a fine, order states to set up insurance exchanges. All of these issues are under challenge

are under challenge right now by 19 states, challenge on constitutional grounds.

And so it's not unlikely that a lot of this is going to come before the Senate

Judiciary Committee over the summer and Democrats

are going to have to defend some fairly unpopular views, not least of which is

are there any limits on government?

What specifically in Stephen's career do we see

that that creates that challenge at least in his work

...