On March 22, 2012, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stated on the floor of the House of Representatives that the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare) grants Americans the right to a “healthy life” and the “liberty to pursue happiness.” Pelosi implies that ObamaCare is valid because it abides by…The Declaration of Independence. With comments such as these, it is not a surprise that Congress’ approval rating is 12%.
The Declaration of Independence is not the law of the land. The Constitution is the law of the land and it is the document by which our representatives are sworn to abide. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give Congress the authority to pass an act, making it mandatory for all Americans to buy a specific health care. What’s next: a mandate to wear red socks?
This is why the Supreme Court is hearing the arguements on ObamaCare this week – coincidentally on the second anniversary of the law’s signing. The constitutionality of this act is now in the hands of the nine Justices; our constitutional checks and balances are at work.
The Affordable Care Act is approximately 2,500 pages long. No wonder Pelosi infamously said, “we have to pass this bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” Alarmingly, most laws are written, not by our elected representatives, but drafted by lawyers and lobbyists.
James Madison warns in Federalist Paper #62, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood…”
In other words, it will be dangerous to our democracy when the representatives who we elect begin passing legislation that is so long that it can’t be read or understood, making it impossible to determine if it passes constitutional muster. Oops. That already happened.
This is the current problem with our government: blatant disregard of the Constitution. However, one might give the current House of Representatives the benefit of the doubt; they tried to fix this dilemma.
The Constitution gives each new Congress the authority to make a set of laws that will regulate the acts of all its representatives. The Congress of 2010 decided to implement House Rule XII, Section 7(c). This rule states that every piece of legislation introduced in Congress must be “accompanied by (a document) citing the constitutional authority to enact the proposed.” Constituting America recently sponsored an analysis of Members’ of Congress compliance with this rule.
Constituting America’s analysis discovered that many representatives, when struggling to find constitutional backing for their legislation, simply cite the Preamble. There is only one problem: the Preamble is not law. It is simply an introduction written by Gouverneur Morris to summarize the Constitution.
It is this lack of knowledge about our Constitution that has allowed the Affordable Care Act to pass. With such blatant disregard for our founding document, there is no telling what our government may throw at us next.
