A radically common-sense idea
One Congressman is hoping to blaze a trail back to America's roots -- the U.S. Constitution
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Congress | Constitution | Featured Stories | Podcasts — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Last week, as was noted here on RedState at the time, conservative Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ), as he has every session since the 104th Congress, introduced his Enumerated Powers Act in the House of Representatives. This legislation would, in his words, "require Members of Congress to include an explicit statement of Constitutional authority into each bill that is introduced.
In other words, he says, "It would hold Congress accountable for its actions."
Such a constructionist, Constitutionalist stance seems almost radical in this age of ballooning, ever-intrusive government. Indeed, the vast majority of our representatives seem to have forgotten the Tenth Amendment, which states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In its place, they seem to have inserted their own, which grants all non-enumerated powers, instead of to the states or to the people, to the Federal Government. As Shadegg says:
According to the Tenth Amendment, the national government cannot expand its legislative authority into areas reserved to the States or the people. It is a well-known fact that the size and scope of the federal government has exploded since the New Deal. Congress continues to operate without Constitutional restraint, creating costly and ineffective programs and blatantly ignoring the principles of federalism.
The solution? Well, Rep. Shadegg hopes that the Enumerated Powers Act - which will force Congress to cite the constitutional authority for every bill it passes - will provide that.
I recently spoke with Representative Shadegg about this bill, about what he hopes to accomplish with it, and about his frustrated attempts at getting it through a Republican-controlled Congress in the past. You can listen to the brief podcast here, or you can download it through iTunes. If you are a fan of small-government, constitutional conservatism, then it is well worth your time.
You can download my conversation with Congressman Shadegg here.
or listen here:
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I would like to see a reigning in of the "interstate commerce" clause that has run out of control.
This is a great idea. And I don't think it counts as "redundant" when it is introduced in a new Congress if it didn't pass the last one. That sounds more like persistant.
Grassroots Girl
useful rather than merely symbolic, he'll work to change the rules on bill titles. Under current rules and the highly generalized titles, once a bill is introduced, almost anything can be added under the title. A restriction to narrowly tailored, single subject titles and a requirement that any amendment be within the ambit of the title would eliminate much late night mischief.
In Vino Veritas
do you really think the left (and, to some extent, the right) would pass a bill which would require them to justify the bloated spending and the endless power grab we're facing?
Assuming the bill DID pass, and assuming it passed muster with the Supreme Court, we'd see politicians twisting themselves into knots to come up with Constitutional justification for the bills they pass. Most spending would, of course, be 'justified' under the 'general welfare' clause of the Preamble.
You should be able to recite the 9th and 10th Amendments from memory in order to be eligible to
vote, let alone run for public office.
Just like I’m sure they can all point to how the Constitution allows Congress to pretty much spend money on anything it wants to so long as it could conceivably relate to the “General Welfare” and it can pretty much regulate anything it wants to so long as it could conceivably affect interstate commerce.
I'm not a South Park Republican, I'm a King of the Hill libertarian.
I just want to once again take the opportunity to point out that Article I, Section 8 and Amendment X would be COMPLETELY unnecessary if the founders REALLY intended so broad a meaning of "general welfare" and "among the several states."
"Once Hillary is elected she will create a new form of secret police." -- Dick Morris (her ex-employee)
And give a good interpretation of the amendments. Particularly 1st and second ( see scary gun ban bill and bipartisan political speech muzzle)
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Let's say there is a popular, necessary bill supported by both parties, and pretty much everyone can get behind the wording of the substance of the bill.
However, there are several different controversial constitutional theories going around to support it. Let's say some want to pin it to the commerce clause but don't want to see a due process justification being used because they think it smacks of substantive due process; others want to use due process because they think the commerce clause is being overextended.
If the various factions draw the line on the justification, they would never get together and get the popular bill passed.
Second, let's say the popular bill passes but there is some defect with the constitutional justification: either they failed to provide one detailed enough, or they used a justification that is unconstitutional (according to the Supreme Court) even though there is a perfectly good justification that wasn't cited. Must the popular law be thrown out because it didn't comply with the technical requirement of an adequate constitutional explanation?
And what happens if there is a whole class of laws expressly based on a single constitutional theory, and the Supreme Court
later holds that theory invalid. Suddenly, all those laws are called into question and anyone who runs afoul of them can escape punishment or liability by arguing those laws were invalid from the start because Congress failed to express a valid constitutional basis. Chaos could ensue.
As mentioned last week when this issue was raised, I’ve had to read more than a few bills in my time and almost invariably at the beginning in the “Whereas” clauses they list the rationale for the bill and implicitly reference how Congress has the power to enact the proposed law. Usually the make a “legislative finding” that interstate commerce is being affected and/or it has an impact on how money that was appropriated by Congress is being spent. The courts have usually given high deference to Congress’ findings in these matters and found since almost the beginning of the nation that both the Spending Power and Commerce Power are “plenary and absolute” which means that so long as some legislative finding invokes either or both of these powers, a law is unlikely to be overturned on Tenth Amendment grounds.
I can see it having symbolic value for people who don’t read bills and may have been unaware that this is already the practice, but I doubt it is actually going to change how things are done. Moreover, should we really be praising our elected officials for spending time on a symbolic (and redundant) bill when they could and should be waging a fight on real issues that might actually make a difference?
I'm not a South Park Republican, I'm a King of the Hill libertarian.