Posted on 07/09/2014 9:56:59 AM PDT by wagglebee
As promised, Senate Democrats filed legislation today to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby and other companies from being forced to comply with the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare. The high court issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.
The court ruled that the contraception mandate violated the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, a 1993 law and it held that the mandate “substantially burdens the exercise of religion” and that HHS didn’t use the “least restrictive means” to promote this government interest, tests required by RFRA.
“HHS’s contraception mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion,” the decision reads, adding that the “decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates.” The opinion said the “plain terms of Religious Freedom Restoration Act” are “perfectly clear.”
Now, Senate Democrats want to change the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act in a way that would force companies to pay for birth control, contraception and those abortion-causing drugs.
Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), both abortion advocates, are behind the new legislation and they said, “The Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act would ban employers from refusing to provide health coverage — including contraceptive coverage — guaranteed to their employees and dependents under federal law.”
“After five justices decided last week that an employer’s personal views can interfere with women’s access to essential health services, we in Congress need to act quickly to right this wrong,” Murray said. “This bicameral legislation will ensure that no CEO or corporation can come between people and their guaranteed access to health care, period. I hope Republicans will join us to revoke this court-issued license to discriminate and return the right of Americans to make their own decisions, about their own health care and their own bodies.”
Not one Senate Republican has signed on to the legislation, which pro-life groups will undoubtedly strenuously oppose. House Republicans will not take up the bill, making it so the legislation will not reach President Barack Obama, an abortion advocate who would sign it into law.
In their ruling, the Supreme Court indicated Congress could change the law to require businesses to pay for the birth control and abortion drugs.
“There are other ways in which Congress or HHS could equally ensure that every woman has cost-free access to the particular contraceptives at issue here and, indeed, to all FDA-approved contraceptives,” the opinion concluded.
“The plain terms of RFRA make it perfectly clear that Congress did not discriminate in this way against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs,” read the opinion.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy joined in the majority decision. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion saying that government itself could provide the coverage for contraception and the abortion-causing drugs if a company declines to do so.
But, Americans oppose the HHS mandate and its pro-abortion requirements.
A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans agree with the Supreme Court’s decision this week that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to pay for abortion causing drugs in their employee health care plans.
“Half of voters agree with the U.S. Supreme Court that a business owner should be able to opt out of Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate if it violates his or her religious beliefs,” the poling firm reports about its new national survey.
A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.
“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.
The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.
Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”
Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.
Y I WS surprised she used the word bicameral. All laws passed are bicameral, in that, all laws passed must pass both House and Senate. Exactly what is she trying to say??
Do low information types even know what bicameral means???
Transparent and pathetic attempt to play to the base in an election year. These losers know it isn’t going anywhere.
I think she is trying to fool the LIV with using ‘bicameral’ instead of ‘bipartisan’ to make them think it is supported by two parties.................
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No they are not. Those who promote these drugs are unable to do so without lying, and they know it.
Bicameral merely means it passed both branches of congress. Thus, all "legislation" is bicameral. This is just a Senate bill at this point and it will go no farther.
Of course. It has two humps!
We had take Obamacare...the Liberals can just put on their big girl panties and deal with the HBLB decision.
I don’t see how they think they can legislate away their Constitutional right to freedom of religion . . . the Court has already ruled on that.
ever notice how the Republicans lose in court and throw their hands up and call it settled law? Democrats never give up.
That’s exactly why the Democrats keep winning. They never give up.
Kind of like when the Republicans in the House kept passing bills against Obamacare? Like that?
They both do it. I think its pathetic.
Are they going to try to repeal the First Amendment?
Are they going to demand that God live by their rules?
Neither you, nor I, really know if there will be a “line” or “a mob” all at once. That is HIS business. We can only speculate.
How about preempting this effort with the repeal of Obamacare.
The House should file a bill that declares the whole AFCA unconstitutional (as it is, the Federal Government has no right under the Constitution to compel a business to provide any health care policy) - just as a counter. Won’t happen though...
Given that (a) no employer ever was required by government to provide birth control before Obamacare, and (b) birth control is dirt cheap and there is no question of any lack of “access” to it whatsoever to individuals using it, this whole thing has patently nothing to do with any bogus “war on women”, and has everything to do with the liberals’ pathalogical hatred of Christians and traditional Christian beliefs and want to eradicate any freedoms Christians have.
Can someone else please remind our friends on the left what it means to “reverse” or “overturn” a decision of the Supreme Court!
You can not do this with a bill, law, or even an amendment. Only a future SCOTUS ruling can do that. When the two other branches make administrative or legislative changes to get their desired result, then that does not constitute a “reversal” of the decision, but rather a required accommodation in deference to the interpretation of existing law provided by the ruling.
In fact, administrative actions (such as those already provided for religious NOT-for-profit corporations), were explicitly suggested by some writing for the majority. And naturally, the act of changing a law upon which a ruling is based is an obvious remedy, and therefore does not need to be mentioned in an opinion.
It truly dismays me that quotes by left-leaning politicians and media that refer to “overturning” or “reversing” this decision have gone unchallenged.
Certainly, from their point of view, I can understand why the left and their media allies don’t want to frame this with a more accurate headline like:
“Having Failed at an Illegal Mandate, Democrats Defer to Hobby Lobby Ruling to Find a Legal Alternative”
However, I am surprised that, so far, I seem to be the only one challenging them for referring to their efforts as somehow seeking to “reverse” the SCOTUS decision.
You can amend the Constitution per Article V.
Specifically, I think you would need to use the powers to amend to Constitution, per Article V, to make changes to the judicial powers provided for in, I think, Article III, so that those legal interpretations of either existing law or the Constitution itself could somehow be “reversed” by an act of Congress.
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