State Senate Republicans called on California Attorney General Jerry Brown Tuesday to join other states suing the federal government on health reform.

The lawmakers said Congress can not force people to buy health insurance or any other product.

Attorneys general in 13 other states have filed suit against health care reform that President Barack Obama signed into law. The bill would require a majority of Americans have health insurance.

“I think many Californians share the same view that this is the biggest expansion of government in a generation,” said the leader of Senate Minority Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta.

State Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, sent a letter to Brown.

“The federal government is limited in what can and can not do by the Constitution,” said Harman, calling the measure a violation of the commerce clause.

Brown issued a statement saying that he had instructed his deputies to examine the claims made by Senators.

But Brown, a Democrat and former two-term governor, said that all but one of 13 attorneys general who promised legal action were Republicans.

“Health care is not the place, with people’s lives is at stake, to participate in the poisonous partisanship,” Brown said in a statement.

Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for governor, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, opposed the package of health care and government support for a trial.




Poizner, the state insurance commissioner, said consumers could face higher health insurance premiums and a costly mandate for health insurance if they want to or not.

Whitman’s campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei plan called health care a “new agenda, big government.”

Republican lawmakers also condemned what he called an unfunded mandate, considering that the plan will cost California taxpayers $ 3,000,000,000.

Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, said voters should have final approval on the measure.

“It’s clear to me that the voices of people are not being heard in Washington, DC, or Sacramento,” said Strickland. “At a time when one has high unemployment, this will be devastating to our economy of California.”

The California Democratic Party said the reform of health insurance coverage is provided to 7. 3 million Californians who currently do not have and give a tax credit to about 390,000 small businesses in the state.