“But Republican governors are folding like cheap lawn chairs,” you say. “And political eunuchs in the GOP establishment are bowing to Obama like he bows to foreign dictators. Any hope of repeal is long dead,and besides,Chief Justice John Roberts put the final nail in the judicial coffin last summer,didn’t he? Any chance of killing the Obamacare zombie is gone,right?”
Wrong.
Not surprisingly,the mainstream media paid it little attention;but back in November,the U.S. Supreme Court shocked many in the legal community by granting Liberty Counsel’s motion for a rehearing on its multi-pronged challenge to Obamacare. The high court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments. This is extremely rare and means,almost certainly,that Chief Justice Roberts will get another bite at the rotten apple – this time,with a whole new quiver of legal arrows.
Following the Supreme Court’s directive,Liberty Counsel recently filed its brief in the case of Liberty University v. Geithner. The Christian civil rights firm represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case. While there are other legal challenges to the employer contraceptive/abortifacient mandate,Liberty Counsel’s is the most comprehensive case pending in the country.
The lawsuit challenges 1) the employer mandate for all employers;2) the abortion mandate for religious employers;3) the abortion mandate for individuals;and 4) the entire law because tax bills must originate in the House (and Obamacare originated in the Senate.)
This case is the only one in the country that challenges the entire employer mandate for all employers. Like other pending cases,Liberty Counsel’s also challenges the so-called “Preventative coverage” mandate,which requires employers to provide free contraceptives,sterilization,abortion-inducing drugs,and IUDs,which also causes abortion.
Additionally,Obamacare compels individual citizens to violate their conscience by making them directly fund abortion homicide – both surgical and chemical – under penalty of law. It forces all employees who are part of a plan that offers abortion coverage to pay $1 per month directly to a “free” abortion fund. There is no opt-out provision,and information relative to which plans offer abortion is intentionally covered up. This too is part of the case,so don’t let anyone tell you that Obamacare doesn’t require you to fund abortion on demand. If they do,they’re simply lying through their triple-grande,-four-pump-
Finally,Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that Obamacare is invalid because,since it’s a tax – as the Supreme Court already ruled in June – it violates the Constitution’s Origination Clause. To pass constitutional muster,tax bills must originate in the House,not the Senate.
Before the Democrat-led Senate rammed it through in the dead of night on Christmas Eve 2009,Senate majority leader Harry Reid used a House bill unrelated to Obamacare,struck all the language and the title so that only the former HR number remained,and then inserted a new title and over 2,000 pages of job-killing,economy-crushing,health-care-rationing compost.
Sneaky? Yes. Typical? No doubt. Unconstitutional? Absolutely. It’s like dropping a Ford Pinto engine into a totaled Ferrari body,patching it up,and then selling it to some unsuspecting dupe as a “brand new Ferrari.”
Unfortunately,America was that unsuspecting dupe.
Well,the jig’s up. The Constitution is unambiguous on this matter:“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” Const. art. I §7,cl. 1.
As Liberty Counsel’s brief notes,“Though denominated with a House bill number,the Act actually originated in the Senate,and therefore violates the Origination Clause.”
“Obamacare represents a frontal attack to religious freedom,” said Mat Staver,founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “Obamacare is a train about to collide with the fundamental right to free exercise of religion. Not only does Obamacare violate the rights of religious employers because of its abortion mandate,it violates the rights of individuals who oppose abortion and the rights of all employers,religious or not.
“And to boot,” continued Staver,“the entire law is invalid because tax bills must originate in the House,and Obamacare originated in the Senate.”
Yep,doctor shortages,medical-school dropouts,skyrocketing premiums,no money for pre-existing conditions,trillions more than promised,forced taxpayer funding of abortion,critical health-care rationing,and a bankrupt nation.
Welcome to America’s fall.
Welcome to Obamacare.
Zombies eat brains. If they weren’t already dead,they’d most certainly starve to death on the squalid diet of grey matter served-up by Obama,Reid,Pelosi,and every other cracked skull who voted to open the curtain on this unconstitutional Obamacare freak show.
Thankfully,Chief Justice Roberts,whom I strongly suspect regrets voting to uphold it,looks to have another chance to bury it once and for all.
I wonder if that was his strategy all along.
I sure hope so.
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action.
Photo Credit:Fresh Conservative (Creative Commons)
It will be good to see the religious freedom of my American friends protected against this marxist onslaught. God Bless Liberty University! May you prevail,in Jesus'name.
(continued)
A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states'obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed "cash for cloture"because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.
A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges,which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds,which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No,this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.
This violates the letter,the spirit,and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance,perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997),the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is,by drafting and by deliberate design,exactly what this legislation would do.
The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why,for example,states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car,but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.
This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation,which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts,scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation.
America's founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this,then it can do anything,and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.
This is the first part of that article,which did not appear to
post so I am re-posting it:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MJ Martin (2 Jan 2010)
"Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional"
Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional
If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance,it can do anything.
ORRIN G. HATCH,J. KENNETH BLACKWELL AND KENNETH A. KLUKOWSKI
President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end,but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking,this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.
First,the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.
Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point,exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing,however,for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage;it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree,but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.
In fact,the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service,Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do.
Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the "general welfare."Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution,but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather,the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.
Sounds promising,but I am a Doubting Thomas! Talk is cheap and I want to see concrete results before I believe ObamaCare is vulnerable to defeat!!
If we all just say "NO" it will never happen.
They cannot fine you if you don't have the finances.
They cannot jail millions of us.
Maybe they can shoot us dead???
Maybe that is why we need a revolution
and soon.