>> legal contracts are pretty much sacred under the Constitution. The FedGov doesn't have the power or authority to control or regulate consensual parties to a legal contract. A homeowner's association- which is what this is aimed at- has entered into a contract with the homeowners upon purchase of their property, usually by contractual agreement with the bylaws, etc. of the association. If someone doesn't like the bylaws, they either work to change them, or don't buy the property covered under such a contract.
>> So under both of these precepts, the FedGov doesn't have any right to try to regulate any of this. <<
Not exactly correct:
For many, many years the courts have refused to enforce provisions of private contracts that are "contrary to public policy."
So it's well-established law that if, for example, a homeowners' association bars blacks, Chinese, Jews or any other ethnic or religious group, then the courts will find these contractual provisions null and void.
In a similar vein, about ten years ago the Congress made it illegal for homeowners' associations and landlords to prohibit external TV antennas, whether for satellite or terrestrial reception.
[This doesn't mean your house or apartment can have ANY type of "monster" antenna. But a condo association or landlord is required to make reasonable accomodations for antennas below a certain size.]
So whether one likes the state of the law or not, I'd say the precedents are crystal clear.
And for many years, courts have refused to uphold the 2nd amendment, which is quite crystal clear in its wording and scope. Need I point out the Forth and Fifth, or maybe the Tenth? Not to mention most all of Article VI, or III.
And in Kelo, "the courts" have refused to uphold the US Constitutional provision against government takings and the rights of property owners.
You make my point perfectly... I just stated that Congress and the President don't have the power to do what they did, and the Judicial branch doesn't actually have the Constitutional power to do what you stated."
U.S. Constitution, Article One, Section 10.: No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
Isn't it amazing how socialist, big governmenters can get all the penumbras and emanations and "interpretations" from a very precisely worded, completely comprehensible-by-the-layman, plain English document?
"The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
--James Madison, Federalist 47
Describes exactly what we have today- big government with all the power in the same hands- just different titles.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
-- Justice Louis Brandeis (1928)
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
--James Madison
"To embarass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the oposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked."
--engraved in the Minnesota State Capitol Outside the supreme Court Chambers
Just because the Congress, the President or the Courts have decreed something, doesn't make it constitutional.
Like the saying goes, why not give the Iraqi's our Constitution. We aren't using it any more.