Richmond, Va. (AP) - Less than eight hours after Congress passed sweeping healthcare reforms, Virginia’s Attorney General became the first to
announce a legal challenge against it.

Republican Ken Cuccinelli said early Monday that he will file a court
challenge against what he and other conservatives decry as an
unconstitutional overreach of federal authority.

Cuccinelli said he would file the lawsuit as soon as President Barack
Obama signs the bill passed Sunday night into law.

Earlier this month, Virginia became the first state to finish
legislative passage of a law that bucks any effort by President Barack
Obama and an allied Democratic Congress to impose federal health care
reform in the states.

Similar measures were filed or proposed in 34 other state legislatures.

Cuccinelli is expected to argue that the bill, with its mandate that
requires nearly every American to be insured by 2014, violates the
commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The attorney general’s office
will file suit once President Barack Obama signs the bill into law,
which could occur early this week.

“At no time in our history has the government mandated its citizens buy a
good or service,” Cuccinelli said in a statement Sunday night.

Word of the impending legal action came as the U.S. House debated late
into the evening and passed the landmark reform legislation, 219-212.