Tea party proponent claims constitutional questions with health care reform
ABINGDON, Va. – If health care reform is passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama, the law will likely face an immediate Constitutional challenge.
Local attorney Strother Smith, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, is among a group of Constitutional lawyers from several states who are promising to take the reform law before the high court.
Smith said the legislation violates six Constitutional amendments – including free speech guarantees and protections against illegal search and seizure.
“If the court finds it is unconstitutional, anything the government has done to carry it out would have to be undone,” Smith said. “Hopefully that would cause the federal government to not do anything about the law until all the constitutional questions have been answered.”
Smith’s organization, the 10th Amendment Foundation Inc., was born out of the tea party movement, which opposes government growth beyond the powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
Proponents of the proposed health care legislation contend the sweeping reforms are necessary to make health care more affordable – especially here in Southwest Virginia.
“This bill has gotten lots and lots of debate from all sides,” said Brian Johns, a Southwest Virginia organizer for the Virginia Organizing project, which has been drumming up support for health care reform. “It’s something that has to get done,” Johns said.
Scott Ambrose, a business professor at Emory & Henry College who has studied health care issues, said the cost of care is shockingly high in Southwest Virginia because of poor health statistics – and despite his concerns about the potential for increasing costs and rationing of care, he supports the reform effort because the current system needs a major overhaul.
Ambrose also said he doesn’t think the reform legislation is unconstitutional.
“I think some solution needs to happen,” he said. “I think they’d have to look at it again if it’s ruled as unconstitutional.”
Smith said several amendments to the U.S. Constitution would be violated by the legislation. Those amendments and his reasons include:
* The First Amendment: The legislation would compel senior citizens to discuss end-of-life matters, taking over an area long held to be the domain of religious leaders and infringing on free speech.
* The Fourth and Fifth Amendments: The legislation allows the seizure of money and records without due process.
* The Ninth and 10th Amendments: Congress does not have the power to impose mandatory health insurance; only individual states have that right, Smith said.
* The 14th Amendment: The legislation discriminates between residents of different states and against those who do not belong to labor unions.
* The 16th Amendment: Developing a national insurance plan is a form of social engineering – not the simple revenue-raising purpose of taxation.
“I just hope the mere fact that we’re doing this will cause some Congressmen to think twice about voting for it,” Smith said.
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Reader Reactions
By the way Switch—where do you get your info? How can you say your insurance will be taken away and uninsured will want your help? Like I said,if you have insurance,you better hold on with both hands,cause POOF-it’s gone. Also, if the govt’ helps, where do you think it comes from? The Easter Bunny??????
Switch—don’t you honestly understand or do you really not care??? Most people that don’t have your precious insurance don’t want you to spend your moldy money to support them!!! They have lost insurance thru NO fault of their own and are no longer insurable(by crooked ins standards). They have had jobs,family and(or)businesses.Maybe got sick or lost jobs and have a health issue. At no time, have I heard one of these people beg for your money. God help you if this happens to you or your family,because your ‘so called friends’won’t turn a hand to. They will watch you die and say don’t ask me for anything!!!!Same to commonsense. What has happened to help your fellow man? Not in this time when its all about ‘dog eat dog’.
As usual, the DEM Congress will penalize the vast population for the benefit of a few- just like our justice system…
Only a small number of people don’t have insurance. If they want it let the Government help them. Don’t take my care away and ask me to pay for yours also.
Quit voting in these NUTS and it may get corrected in time to come, one day maybe.
I hope Mr. Smith has a good nest egg. I wouldn’t let him near any legal problem I have. It sounds like all the people in this organization are only for themselves. Just for my own information—How many of these ‘teabaggers’ have insurance? They better hold on to it!!!
Geez, what is it with you guys and the constant reference to a disgusting homosexual act (“teabagging”)? I can understand wanting to call the other side names, however childish that truly is, but why the constant references to a perverted male homosexual act? I mean really… children read this newspaper and you want to put perversion out there front and center for all to see. You should be ashamed. Google images of teabagging and see for yourself. To give you the benefit of doubt, maybe you are ignorant of what kind of male homosexual acts you are speaking of, but I somehow believe that you are aware of what teabagging is all about already.
Where were the Teabaggers shouting Constiution when it came to PRE-EMPTIVE WAR in Iraq or threats against Iran after the USA gave Iran the Nuclear Technology ?
Where were the Teabaggers when the U.S. Military was sent in to secure plantations for Banana Growers ?
You should heed the words of General Semdely Butler !!!
When a teabagging chucklehead says ANYTHING,question it…they are willfully the biggest bunch of racist,hypocritical ignoramuses this country has ever had to suffer.Thankfully their generation will soon be gone forever.“Those opposing health care reform are increasingly relying on an argument that has no legal merit: that the health care reform legislation would be unconstitutional. There is, of course, much to debate about how to best reform America’s health care system. But there is no doubt that bills passed by House and Senate committees are constitutional.
Some who object to the health care proposals claim that they are beyond the scope of congressional powers. Specifically, they argue that Congress lacks the authority to compel people to purchase health insurance or pay a tax or a fine.
Congress clearly could do this under its power pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to regulate commerce among the states. The Supreme Court has held that this includes authority to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. In the area of economic activities, “substantial effect” can be found based on the cumulative impact of the activity across the country. For example, a few years ago, the Supreme Court held that Congress could use its commerce clause authority to prohibit individuals from cultivating and possessing small amounts of marijuana for personal medicinal use because marijuana is bought and sold in interstate commerce.
The relationship between health care coverage and the national economy is even stronger and more readily apparent. In 2007, health care expenditures amounted to $2.2 trillion, or $7,421 per person, and accounted for 16.2 percent of the gross domestic product.
Ken Klukowski, writing in POLITICO, argued that “people who declined to purchase government-mandated insurance would not be engaging in commercial activity, so there’s no interstate commerce.” Klukowski’s argument is flawed because the Supreme Court never has said that the commerce power is limited to regulating those who are engaged in commercial activity.
Quite the contrary: The court has said that Congress can use its commerce power to forbid hotels and restaurants from discriminating based on race, even though their conduct was refusing to engage in commercial activity. Likewise, the court has said that Congress can regulate the growing of marijuana for personal medicinal use, even if the person being punished never engaged in any commercial activity.
Under an unbroken line of precedents stretching back 70 years, Congress has the power to regulate activities that, taken cumulatively, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. People not purchasing health insurance unquestionably has this effect.
There is a substantial likelihood that everyone will need medical care at some point. A person with a communicable disease will be treated whether or not he or she is insured. A person in an automobile accident will be rushed to the hospital for treatment, whether or not he or she is insured. Congress would simply be requiring everyone to be insured to cover their potential costs to the system.
Congress also could justify this as an exercise of its taxing and spending power. Congress can require the purchase of health insurance and then tax those who do not do so in order to pay their costs to the system. This is similar to Social Security taxes, which everyone pays to cover the costs of the Social Security system. Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has accorded Congress broad powers to tax and spend for the general welfare and has left it to Congress to determine this.Nor is there any basis for arguing that an insurance requirement violates individual liberties. No constitutionally protected freedom is infringed. There is no right to not have insurance. Most states now require automobile insurance as a condition for driving.
Since the 19th century, the Supreme Court has consistently held that a tax cannot be challenged as an impermissible take of private property for public use without just compensation. All taxes are a taking of private property for public use, but no tax has ever been invalidated on that basis.
Since the late 1930s, the Supreme Court has ruled that government economic regulations, including taxes, are to be upheld as long as they are reasonable. Virtually all economic regulations and taxes have been found to meet this standard for more than 70 years. There is thus no realistic chance that the mandate for health insurance would be invalidated for denying due process or equal protection.
Those who object to the health care proposals on constitutional grounds are making an argument that has no basis in the law. They are invoking the rhetorical power of the Constitution to support their opposition to health care reform, but the law is clear that Congress constitutionally has the power to do so. There is much to argue about in the debate over health care reform, but constitutionality is not among the hard questions to consider.“
-Erwin Chemerinsky
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