After Hobby Lobby, Democrats Seek To Alter Bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Townhall.com ^ | July 5, 2014 | Matt Vespa

[Kaslin]

After the Supreme Court handed down a defeat for supporters of the contraceptive mandate, which gave religious exemptions to for-profit, “closely-held corporations;” Democrats are moving to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

When it was passed in 1993, the bill almost had unanimous support; three votes were against it in the Senate. It seems that our more left-leaning members on the Hill seem to think that RFRA is being used haphazardly to benefit conservatives. As Megan McArdle of Bloomberg View wrote yesterday, RFRA isn’t a “blank check:”

[Verginius Rufus]

The First Amendment is the obvious basis for a ruling, but (according to someone on FNC today) Chief Justice Roberts apparently prefers to make rulings as narrow as possible out of his concern for the “reputation” of the Court (his ostensible reason for flip-flopping on Obamacare in 2012).

[Amendment10]

"... (his ostensible reason for flip-flopping on Obamacare in 2012)."

Hi Verginius Rufus. Regarding Obamacare Democratcare, given the remote possibility that you have not already seen the following excerpts from Supreme Court case opinions, you might find them interesting. Regardless what activist justices and the corrupt media, including Obama guard dog Faux News, wanted everybody to think about the constitutionality of Democratcare, these justices probably don't want anybody to know that the Court had already clarified the following. The Court had clarified, on several occasions, that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate healhcare purposes.

• ”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• “Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• “Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln, 1837.

• “Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphasis added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.

And regardless that Democrats and RINOs will argue that since the Constitution doesn't say that Congress cannot establish a national healthcare program, it means that they can do it, please consider that the Supreme Court has also addressed that kind of foolish thinking.

”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.