By Andrew P. Napolitano
Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.” Then he shot back: “How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?”
Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress’s powers only to those granted in the Constitution.
One of those powers—the power “to regulate” interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of anything it wants to control.
Unfortunately, a notoriously tendentious New Deal-era Supreme Court decision has given Congress a green light to use the Commerce Clause to regulate noncommercial, and even purely local, private behavior. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court held that a farmer who grew wheat just for the consumption of his own family violated federal agricultural guidelines enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Though the wheat did not move across state lines—indeed, it never left his farm—the Court held that if other similarly situated farmers were permitted to do the same it, might have an aggregate effect on interstate commerce.
James Madison, who argued that to regulate meant to keep regular, would have shuddered at such circular reasoning. Madison’s understanding was the commonly held one in 1789, since the principle reason for the Constitutional Convention was to establish a central government that would prevent ruinous state-imposed tariffs that favored in-state businesses. It would do so by assuring that commerce between the states was kept “regular.”
The Supreme Court finally came to its senses when it invalidated a congressional ban on illegal guns within 1,000 feet of public schools. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause may only be used by Congress to regulate human activity that is truly commercial at its core and that has not traditionally been regulated by the states. The movement of illegal guns from one state to another, the Court ruled, was criminal and not commercial at its core, and school safety has historically been a state function.
Applying these principles to President Barack Obama’s health-care proposal, it’s clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one’s health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.
The same Congress that wants to tell family farmers what to grow in their backyards has declined “to keep regular” the commercial sale of insurance policies. It has permitted all 50 states to erect the type of barriers that the Commerce Clause was written precisely to tear down. Insurers are barred from selling policies to people in another state.
That’s right: Congress refuses to keep commerce regular when the commercial activity is the sale of insurance, but claims it can regulate the removal of a person’s appendix because that constitutes interstate commerce.
What we have here is raw abuse of power by the federal government for political purposes. The president and his colleagues want to reward their supporters with “free” health care that the rest of us will end up paying for. Their only restraint on their exercise of Commerce Clause power is whatever they can get away with. They aren’t upholding the Constitution—they are evading it.
Mr. Napolitano, who served on the bench of the Superior Court of New Jersey between 1987 and 1995, is the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel.
(from Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574412793406386548.html
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October 29, 2009
King Statement on $894 Billion Liberal Health Care Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Steve King today responded to the $894 billion health care bill unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberals.
“After weeks of closed door meetings, the Pelosi Democrats have cobbled together a 1,990 page, $894 billion, deficit expanding government takeover of health care. Liberals say the problem with the American health care system is we spend too much money. So their solution is to spend a whole lot more. Democrats have now perfected a form of ‘irrational logic.’
“The Pelosi Democrats are willing to spend nearly a trillion dollars to reduce the percentage of uninsured from less than four percent of Americans without affordable options down to perhaps two percent, and in the process put in place the framework for socialized medicine. This is a bad deal for every American, those present and grandchildren yet to be born. The American people need to rise up, shut down the phone lines in Congress and kill this bill.”
Your attention and your vigilance in acting on this is very important in protecting our constitution.
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. In this 4 minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. A draft of the petition can be read here:
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/documents/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf
Here is the full presentation of Lord Christopher Monckton:
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=552
Here is the full slide presentation:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/asset…
Chuck Norris has an article in WorldNetDaily with a good analysis of the treaty:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE….
There has been considerable debate raised about Monckton’s conclusion that the Copenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty. His comments appear to be based upon his interpretation of the The Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass. You can read more about the Bricker Amendment in a 1953 Time Magazine article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art…,9171,806676-1,00.html
Lord Monckton served as a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate to which Gore has refused. Monckton sued to stop Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” from being shown in British schools due to its inaccuracies. The judge found in-favor of Monckton, ordering 9 serious errors in the film to be corrected. Lord Monckton travels internationally in an attempt to educating the public about the myth of global warming.
President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Harry Reid think you and I are tired and losing interest. The New York Times and other media outlets are writing that the grassroots fire burned out in August and September. Is this true? Are you tired and losing interest in rescuing America? I didn’t think so. So let’s let them know you and I are still focused and they need to keep their hands off our health care. Join with Americans for Prosperity on November 5 to make a “Congressional House Call”.
http://americansforprosperity.org/102209-make-house-call-november-5th
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to stand with us, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God. Our Oath is to the Constitution
This video explains the different types of government, what they mean, and what they stand for.
As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.
This video was posted on YouTube by Eric Cantor, Republican Whip. The vote controvery took place in August of 2007. The website url listed below will give details of the event and the following investigation. We shouldn’t consider this old news since it serves to show we’ve been on this path away from the constitution and a government serving the people for quite some time. There will be no Easy fix, nor should we dream of it happening overnight. It will take eternal vigilance.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=August_2007_House_voting_controversy
You are invited to a State Legislative Current Events Forum, open to the public November 12, 2009 at Northwest Iowa Community College (NCC) in Sheldon at 7:00 P.m. Our honorable guests will be Senator Randy Feenstra, Senator David Johnson, Representative Dwayne Alons and Representative Royd Chambers. This forum is sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots in Sheldon and refreshments will be provided. You are welcome to invite your friends and your neighbors to come along to hear from our state legislators.