Posted on 04/02/2011 5:07:08 AM PDT by MontaniSemperLiberi
HR 1255 as passed by committee:
Page 1
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Page 2
5 ...If the House has not received
6 a message from the Senate before April 6, 2011, stating
7 that it has passed a measure providing for the appropria
8 tions for the departments and agencies of the Government
9 for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, the provisions of
10 H.R. 1, as passed by the House on February 19, 2011,
11 are hereby enacted into law.
Pages 2-3
21 ...The Secretary of the Senate and the
22 Chief Administrative Officer of the House, respectively,
23 shall not disburse to each Member or Delegate the amount
24 of his or her salary for each day that—
25 (1) there is more than a 24-hour lapse in ap
26 propriations for any Federal agency or department
1 as a result of a failure to enact a regular appropria
2 tions bill or continuing resolution; or
3 (2) the Federal Government is unable to make
4 payments or meet obligations because the public
5 debt limit under section 3101 of title 31, United
6 States Code, has been reached.
(Excerpt) Read more at gpo.gov ...
The question I have for Freepers is, "Is the House really saying that its HR1 is LAW or are they saying that it is the default bill to be sent to the Senate?" I think it's the latter as the bill starts off with "Be it enacted by the Senate and House..."
If it’s the former then it is obviously unconstitutional.
The second controversy with this law is salaries. A close reading makes it clear it is probably not unconstitutional to say "shall not disburse to each Member or Delegate the amount of his or her salary" because it is talking about a time of payment and not the amount of payment. In other words, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution says, "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." but it does not say WHEN the compensation must be given. It depends on what your definition of "varying" is.
So what, if anything, is unconstitutional about this bill?
Breitbart is running articles saying this bill is unconstitutional:
The Kabuki theater that is the debate over the federal budget took a weird turn this afternoon. The GOP-led House of Representatives passed HR 1255, the “Government Shutdown Prevention Act.” The measure is largely symbolic…it states that if the Democrat-led Senate and President Obama don’t act on $61 billion in cuts passed earlier this year by the House, those cuts would be ‘law of the land.’ Which, obviously, doesn’t hold any water. This isn’t too far away from when Democrats proposed “deeming” ObamaCare passed.
The House GOP Leadership, however, did add something to their legislation that should give pause to all conservatives. They grafted onto their bill a Democrat proposal to suspend pay for members of Congress if there is a government shutdown. So, if members believe that the budget cuts “negotiated” by GOP Leadership are too small or think we should finally face up to the inevitable tough choices, they potentially could lose their pay.
I think Rep. McCotter summed it up best:
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