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Would Supreme Court rule unconstitutional law passed with Slaughter Solution?
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
03/15/10 4:21 PM EDT
Democrats in Congress might want to re-read the 1998 Supreme Court decision Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 before moving forward with the Slaughter Solution to pass President Obama's health care reform bill. That decision is chiefly remembered today for holding a federal version of the line-item veto as unconstitutional.
The reason, according to Amy Ridenour at the National Center Blog, is that the Justice John Paul Stevens articulated in the majority opinion the precise rationale for a similar ruling against legislation passed using the Slaughter Solution.
Ridenour notes that Stevens wrote:
"...our decision rests on the narrow ground that the procedures authorized by the Line Item Veto Act are not authorized by the Constitution. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is a 500-page document that became 'Public Law 105--33' after three procedural steps were taken:
"(1) a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may 'become a law.' Art. I, Section 7.
"If one paragraph of that text had been omitted at any one of those three stages, Public Law 105--33 would not have been validly enacted. [Emphasis added] If the Line Item Veto Act were valid, it would authorize the President to create a different law - one whose text was not voted on by either House of Congress or presented to the President for signature.
"Something that might be known as 'Public Law 105--33 as modified by the President' may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may 'become a law' pursuant to the procedures designed by the Framers of Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution."
That reasoning would seem applicable to legislation approved under the Slaughter Solution, since the House would be voting on a proposed rule for considering a bill and not the bill itself.
Something to think about, Madame Speaker. You can read all of Amy's post here.
Any bets on how long before a liberal lawyer writes in to explain why the Justice Stevens' logic would not apply to the Slaughter Solution?
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Topics
Congress , Supreme Court , Justice John Paul Stevens , Slaughter Solution , Obamacare , Politics , House of Representatives , Democrats , House Speaker Nancy PelosiFollow The Examiner
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