A decision late Friday declaring the Affordable Care Act unlawful triggered a furious weekend debate about the validity of the ruling and its fate before an appeals court and ultimately before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the 55-page decision in Texas v. United States, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed with 20 states challenging the law that congressional action last year to eliminate the penalty imposed by the individual mandate in the act made it unconstitutional. In the more controversial part of O'Connor's decision, he said that the demise of the mandate rendered the entire law invalid, because it could not be severed from the mandate.