Unrepealable? (DeMint questions about rules changes in bill requiring 2/3 vote and senate adjourns)

NRO ^ | 12/22/09 | Rober Costa

[cornelis]

Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) has thumbed through Harry Reid's manager's amendment and discovered some "particularly troubling" rule-change provisions, especially with regards to the proposed Independent Medicare Advisory Board, which he finds could be unrepealable:

[Cheerio]

UNTIL Americans wake up out of their stupor and turn off the 19" peephole into paradise, nothing is going to change.

If this bill is soooooo good for America, why
(1) do the benefits not kick in for 4 years, after all Reid told us that thousands are dying every week because they lack free insurance,
(2) the RATS have to buy off how many Senators now in order to get their vote, and
(3) why do these have to be done in the dead of night with no one seeing the bill?

[HiramQuick]

if it wasn’t so insanely serious, I would laugh at the (widdle “r’s”) clowns we elect. Crying does no good. Oh by the way .... tell me how you really feel. lol

We are on the same page,pargraph sentence and word. Action verb .... “Dump” em all!!!

[Cheerio]

I would like to find a website where people suggest means of civil disobedience after this gets signed (and it will). People need to change their W-2s to claim 21 exemptions which will deny the Fed the cash until tax date on April 15.

[ichabod1]

YEah, they can’t do it. Any rule change they make now can be reversed in the next congress - if they’re willing to do it. THis is just a little thing called the Nuclear Option, which the pubes refused to take last time, but we knew the rats wouldn’t hesitate.

[TeleStraightShooter]

- or claim “EXEMPT” on line 7 of the W-4.

[RWGinger]

This is the bill that addresses this, HR 675
Money line:
“To amend title 10, United States Code, to provide police officers, criminal investigators, and game law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense with authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms.”

Nice end run around the Posse Comitatus Act, by calling them civilians.

This was introduced January 26 2009, The POS odumbo didn’t waste anytime
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h675/text

Thank goodness for sites like FR.

[littleharbour]

To: MeanGreen2008
I’m afraid the Interstate Commerce clause is an enumerated power that does grant Congress the power to do what they are doing.
Not by any description of the commerce power by the Founders that I’ve ever read. The “substantial effects” doctrine is an invention of the FDR and the New Deal court. It has no basis in original intent, and is in fact contrary to it.

152 posted on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 4:02:13 PM by tacticalogic (”Oh bother!” said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)

The Heritage Foundation has already put out an excellent analysis of the Constitutional violations contained in this farce of legislation. The Commerce Clause clearly does not justify trying to force citizens to purchase a particular item from a private company and then fine/jail them for refusing to do so. It’s a bit lengthy, but worth the read. Whether Justice Kennedy will agree with the Heritage Foundation or with the Chicago Mob, remains to be seen.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0049.cfm#_ftn49

[Munz]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/reid_bill_declares_future_cong_1.asp

BOLSHEVICKS!!!

[cornelis]

Thanks for the link. I'll post it here too:

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight. First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill--and it's supposed to take a 2/3 vote to change the rules. And then he pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses:

there's one provision that i found particularly troubling and it's under section c, titled "limitations on changes to this subsection."

and i quote -- "it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

this is not legislation. it's not law. this is a rule change. it's a pretty big deal. we will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.

i'm not even sure that it's constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. i don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. if you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates.

i mean, we want to bind future congresses. this goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future co congresses.

[ronnie raygun]

We need to put untold pressure on the house to kill this bill.

[MissouriConservative]

"This won`t make it to the USSC, and even if it did the courts are so enraptured with judicial activism they`ll find in favor of the US govt."

There have been numerous court cases, not concerning rule changes, but the attempt of one congress to bind a future congress. That's what this is attempting to do by saying that no future congress can repeal the medical advisory board. That is unconstitutional. If they can do that,then there would be no need for future congresses as one congress can pass all the laws with this in it. Then you have a true dictatorship.

In other threads, these are the court cases that I've discovered so far....

Fletcher v. Peck - “The principle asserted is, that one legislature is competent to repeal any act which a former legislature was competent to pass; and that one legislature cannot abridge the powers of a succeeding legislature.

The correctness of this principle, so far as respects general legislation, can never be controverted.

United States v. Winstar - “Hence, although we have recognized that “a general law . . . may be repealed, amended or disregarded by the legislature which enacted it,” and “is not binding upon any subsequent legislature,” Manigault v. Springs, 199 U.S. 473, 487 (1905), [n.19] on this side of the Atlantic the principle has always lived in some tension with the constitutionally created potential for a legislature, under certain circumstances, to place effective limits on its successors, or to authorize executive action resulting in such a limitation.”

Manigault v. Springs - “As this is not a constitutional provision, but a general law enacted by the legislature, it may be repealed, amended, or disregarded by the legislature which enacted it. This law was doubtless intended as a guide to persons desiring to petition the legislature for special privileges, and it would be a good answer to any petition for the granting of such privileges that the required notice had not been given; but it is not binding upon any subsequent legislature, nor does a noncompliance with it impair or nullify the provisions of an act passed without the requirement of such notice.”

[Still Thinking]

Obviously, any law, rule, or anything that can be passed with a given number of votes in a given body can be reversed with the same number of votes. Let’s say for example that 60 votes are required to make a rule change, and Dingy Harry rounds up and or bribes 60 members to vote on a new rule that changes to features of this bill will require 67 votes. Well, all the future Senators have to do is muster 60 votes to change the rule again so that the threshold is lowered back to 60 or 51 or whatever the old rule would have said. Then those same 60 can vote to make the change.

[lgjhn23]

“What if they are combined? Census workers who are also tasked with the responsibility to tag every gun (and then enter the information into the already set up GPS database of every home in America)....”

I wouldn’t want to be a “Census volunteer” for that duty even if I had the whole UN security force behind me.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

There is only one recourse to tyrants

If we are sending these people our tax money, they are not tyrants. Quit enabling them. Refuse to pay their salaries. Refuse to contribute your wealth to their schemes. THEN, if they take it by force, or take you by force, they are tyrants and there is only one recourse.

Until then, talk of "one recourse" is mere bluster.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

We need to put untold pressure on the house to kill this bill.

How many of us have even written a letter to our representatives?

[Earthdweller]

"Senator DeMint - take this bill down, either as it stands or take it to the SCOTUS, and the 2012 GOP nomination is yours if you want it..."

I'll have to agree with that.

[Weirdad]

Exactly, thank you!

[cornelis]

Except that isn’t exactly what’s my concern—or the concern of Senator DeMint. This isn’t a “let’s say” situation. The Democrats are trying to pass legislation that includes rules changes without the required votes. Did you watch the DeMint question the chair? It’s a must see.

[x_plus_one]

the boobs they are for always ceding power when they get it.

Ceding power on the hope that your enemy will power-share says a lot about the new tone that Bush tried to use in dealing with democrats. Giving away your country on the vain hope that it will be surrendered back again is nuts.

Bush's effort to have a new tone resulted in the remainder of the Clinton regime staying on in the state dept and in other agencies to the point that they created roadblocks and hamstrung his administration.

George W. Bush sees himself as a gentleman but in reality he was a tool for his father and those unseen shadowy forces that convinced him that Ben Bernacke was the right man from whom to take financial advice.

[Theodore R.]

With Obama there, it would take 2/3 to repeal anyway, but maybe this seeks to require 2/3 after this administration. At any rate, the American people would never understand the distinction.