|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||||
|
|
Posted on 05/18/2014 2:46:52 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
WASHINGTON-- This week, U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Congressman Pete Sessions (TX-32) and his colleagues filed an amicus brief and joined a court challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, specifically challenging the legality of that law. The PPACA, which effectively originated as legislation in the Senate, raises revenue through the individual mandate, which violates the Constitutional clause that requires any bill which raises revenue to originate in the House of Representatives.
“The President has changed the law six ways to Sunday in order to satisfy political donors, provide breaks to Big Labor, and ignore his own deadlines. One of the only provisions left intact also happens to violate the Constitution,” said Sen. Cornyn. “The individual mandate is a tax on the American people, and it coerces them into purchasing health care they don’t want. I’m proud to join in filing this brief to overturn this unconstitutional law.”
“The Constitution’s Origination Clause requires that all revenue raising bills originate in the House of Representatives. Harry Reid and Senate Democrats tried to sidestep this Clause through legislative gimmicks,” said Sen. Cruz. “Obamacare is a revenue raising bill that originated in the Senate, and it is therefore unconstitutional. I am honored to fight for all Texans in this lawsuit, as Obamacare’s illegal mandates are crippling businesses across Texas and all of America.”
“If Obamacare’s individual mandate is in fact a tax on the American people, Obamacare clearly violates the Constitution because it originated in the Senate,” said Congressman Pete Sessions. “I am proud to join with my colleagues in both chambers to show our support for this important case that should put an end to Obamacare. I took an oath of office to protect the Constitution that I take seriously and I call on the judiciary to do the same.”
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
The only way the ACA can be declared Constitutional is if Roberts applies the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to it... it’s both a tax and not a tax at one and the same time.
Or, it’s like Schroedinger’s cat... as long as the law is unpassed, we can’t know if it is dead or alive.
It’s easy to prove that Reid used a HR form, erased all the text, added in 2500 pages of zerocare, then passed it.
...and you can either tell where Obamacare is going to kill you, or how fast it is going to kill you, but not both at the same time.
Much, much better than mine. I knew it was in there somewhere.
Even if train wreck Obamacare Democratcare had been an outstanding success, why is Sen. Cornyn, elected in 2002, just now making an issue about the Origination Clause with respect to Democratcare, years after the fact?
Cornyn and Harvard Law School-indoctrinated Cruz are politicking with respect to trumpeting the Origination Clause imo. Does the Originiation clause give them an excuse to sidestep making the federal government's constitutionally limited powers of Section 8 of Article I an issue?
Judge Andrew Napolitano will read Section 8 to you in about 3 minutes.
Judge Napolitano & the Constitution
Since Judge Napolitan reasonably concluded that Section 8 doesn't say anything about Congress having the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for public healthcare purposes, please consider the following excerpts. They are from Supreme Court case opinions where the Court has not only officially clarified that the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for public healthcare purposes, but also that powers not expressly delegated to the the federal government via the Constitution are prohibited.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
It appears that the section was proposed by the Senate as an amendment to a bill for raising revenue which originated in the House. That is sufficient. Having become an enrolled and duly authenticated act of Congress, it is not for this court to determine whether the amendment was or was not outside the purposes of the original bill.
Lots of discussion relating to legal precedent, both in Congress and as construed by the courts, in CRS RL31399 - The Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution: Interpretation and Enforcement, March 15, 2011. The short version of the Court precedents is:
The Supreme Court has occasionally ruled on Origination Clause matters, adopting a definition of revenue bills that is based on two central principles that tend to narrow its application to fewer classes of legislation than the House: (1) raising money must be the primary purpose of the measure, rather than an incidental effect; and (2) the resulting funds must be for the expenses or obligations of the government generally, rather than a single, specific purpose.Emphasis is mine.
This friend of the court brief is merely a political gimmick. The bill originated in the House, as your citations establish.
The shell of the bill originated in the house. Sent to the Senate Chop Shop, it was eviscerated and impregnated with the Alien ACA.
I find the SCOTUS precedents to be self-serving sophistry, and full of logical holes. But, no doubt SCOTUS would find the law in line with the origination clause. The foundation of the ACA case (Sebelius) is that SCOTUS won't protect the people from their politicians.
Obamacare isn’t going to be eliminated by this. No way.
Based on Justice Roberts’ previous ruling, he’ll likely say the House would have originated ACA anyway since they voted for it. The court won’t toss out ACA on what they’ll see as a mere technicality. It will be just like the penalty that’s a tax. The law said it was a penalty, but the House really meant it as a tax.
In other words, Roberts might claim the origination clause was met in principle when the House passed ACA, because that proves they would have originated it anyway. I know. I know. It’s lame, but so was the penalty that’s a tax rationale. The “law” these days is simply whatever they want it to be. They’re quite brazen about it.
Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]
“The President has changed the law six ways to Sunday in order to satisfy political donors, provide breaks to Big Labor, and ignore his own deadlines. One of the only provisions left intact also happens to violate the Constitution,” said Sen. Cornyn. “The individual mandate is a tax on the American people, and it coerces them into purchasing health care they don’t want. I’m proud to join in filing this brief to overturn this unconstitutional law.”
“We don’t need no steenking rule of law.”
The sad thing about it from my perspective is that the rule of law benefits everyone, both left and right. It is far, far better for a court to strictly interpret the law, because a new law can always be passed to clarify what was meant. If we continue to let judges act like super legislators, no one can predict where they’ll go next, and that harms all of us (even though a faction might claim temporary victory).
The US Constitution was an excellent foundation, but it wasn’t good enough for some factions that didn’t have the votes necessary to do an amendment. Much narrower majorities (maybe even political minorities) used judges to thwart the law while claiming to actually follow it!
Now we have ever evolving “standards” that depend on who stacks the courts. That helps no one, not even those who foolishly think it’s good to use the courts to hammer their neighbors. Our judges have become super legislators, and what’s done today can be quickly undone tomorrow by the same techniques.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.