Posted on 10/05/2010 3:59:20 PM PDT by WilliamIII
A Sacramento-based legal group has joined Virginia’s battle against the federal health care overhaul, filing an amicus brief in federal court in Richmond supporting the argument being advanced by Virginia Attorney general Ken Cuccinelli.
The Pacific Legal Foundation “friend of the court” brief argues, like Cuccinelli, that the insurance mandate provision of the new health care law violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by ordering individual citizens to buy a good or service or face a fine.
(Excerpt) Read more at mytimesdispatch.com ...
Great! We will take all the help and support we can get.
It also violates my “pursuit of happiness” by forcing me to purchase it when I do not wnat to.
Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation filed a friend of the court brief in support of Virginia Attorney general Ken Cuccinelli — “that the insurance mandate provision of the new health care law violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by ordering individual citizens to buy a good or service or face a fine.”
Thanks WilliamIII.
‘A person’s not deciding to buy health insurance is not an ‘economic activity,’ and no precedent exists allowing Congress to compel people to engage in commerce who otherwise would not choose to do so.’
DAMN RIGHT
ObamaCare is the first muslim tax on non-muslims in the USA or a Jizya. More will probably follow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
Muslims are exempt from ObamaCare.
Keep watching TV - dhiminis - it helps Obama and Islam. The six TV networks all support Islam and your eventual dhiminitude.
As Mark Levin has spoken about at length, Wickard v. Filburn basically says not engaging in commerce affects commerce and is therefore under the purview of the Commmerce clause.
The author is an idiot, and has no business writing articles about Constitutional law, and probably shouldn't even be a journalist.
The Commerce Clause involves absolutely NO prohibitions applied to anyone on any subject whatsoever. Therefore, it is logically and legally impossible for anyone or any law to "violate" it.
The Commerce Clause grants a very limited authority to Congress to regularize ("make regular," the only meaning of the verb "regulate" in the 18th century when the Constitution was written) the interpretation and enforcement of the terms of any contract of sale where the buyer and seller were doing business with each other across State lines.
The Commerce Clause was explicitly NOT a grant of power to do anything else, nor a grant of power to criminalize anything whatsoever. We know that's true because the Framers explicitly told us that the Constitution was written from start to finish based on the assumption that the Federal government was only granted those powers explicitly enumerated (including any powers implied as "necessary and proper"—meaning rightful, not violative of individual rights.) Some of the Framers—including James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution—were even against any enumeration of the rights of individuals being included in the Constitution, since it should not be necessary to forbid the government from doing anything the Constitution did not explicitly authorize it to do. There is no need for an explicit Constitutional recognition of the freedom of speech (for example,) when the government is not granted any power to regulate it—let alone criminalize it.
The only actions the Federal government has the Constitutional authority to criminalize are explicitly listed in the Constitution. The two major actions that the Constitution authorizes Congress to criminalize are counterfeiting the national currency and piracy on the high seas—and not much else. The whole point to explicitly enumerating what may be criminalized is the same as the purpose of explicitly enumerating all the other granted powers: to withhold and exclude any powers not enumerated!
So the problem with ObamaCare isn't that it "violates the Commerce Clause," but rather that it wrongly relies on the Commerce Clause to justify its Constitutionality. But healthcare is not interstate commerce. Although modern healthcare does involve commercial transactions across State lines, Congress' Constitutional authority is strictly limited to those transactions, and is also strictly limited to regularizing them: establishing standard interpretations of the contracts of sale, and standard rules and mechanisms for the enforcement of those contracts when the buyer and seller are doing business in different States. And that's why the Commerce Clause in no way authorizes ObamaCare.
Go Ken Cuccinelli, GO!
I would be even more pissed than I am, if that were true. I would like to look it up. Do you have a clue where to look for text that says this tax does not apply to muslims?
Here is the Senate version that was passed in December...
http://defendyourhealthcare.us/images/patient-protection-affordable-care-act-as-passed.pdf
And here is the reconciliation ‘tweaks’ that were passed
in 2010, and was approved by both houses...
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr4872EH/pdf/BILLS-111hr4872EH.pdf
Both of these pdf files together constitute “ObamaCare”.
Where do I look?
My favorite lien,”Both sides have agreed that if the mandate provision were struck down by the court, the health care overhaul as it currently stands would likely collapse”
Collapse has such a nice ring to it.
Thank You!. Constitutional ignorance is a real problem.
I would tend to agree with what you posted. However, the USSC have repeatedly allowed the Commerce Clause to mean FAR more than the Framers intended. When even the USSC rules that the Federal Government can prohibit my growing vegetables/grains in my garden - they can make it mean anything.
FWIW - I think the author intended to imply that by regulating commerce for which the Congress has no mandate - that this violates the Commerce Clause and is likely the argument being made before the court.
And, IIRC - it was Hamilton that wrote the Treatise regarding the danger of a Bill of Rights - but I think it is safe to assume that both Madison and Jay agreed, at least in principle.
Not sure where you look, but there was indeed a “religious exemption” that involved both the Muslims and the Amish.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/21699
I think this explains it pretty well.
Well said.
It is in the bill in at least 3 places...
(5) EXEMPTIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS.
—In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information: (A) In the case of an individual seeking ex emption based on the individual’s status as a member of an exempt religious sect or division, as a member of a health care sharing ministry, as an Indian, or as an individual eligible for a hardship exemption,
‘‘(2) RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS.—
‘‘(A) RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION.—Such term shall not include any individual for any month if such individual has in effect an exemption under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof described in section 1402(g)(1) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.
(c) Section 5000A(d)(2)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as added by section 1501(b) of this Act, is amended to read as follows:
‘‘(A) RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION.—Such term shall not include any individual for any month if such individual has in effect an exemption under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which certifies that such individual is—
‘‘(i) a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof which is described in section 1402(g)(1), and
‘‘(ii) an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.’’.
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