Assemblywoman Donna Simon, R-Hunterdon, Somerset, Mercer and Middlesex, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the federal healthcare law:
“The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that President Obama’s healthcare law is a massive tax on the American people and businesses. New Jersey families and businesses need relief from taxes and the cost of healthcare. President Obama has added to that burden with an outrageous expansion of government that we cannot afford.”
She adds, “Our healthcare system remains broken and we must take a better approach toward solutions that put patients first by reducing costs and improving treatment, such as The New Jersey Healthcare Choice Act, a proposal I support that would lower costs by allowing health insurers to provide coverage across state lines to increase healthcare options for New Jersey families.” TLS.
I respectfully disagree. The Supreme Court decided the law was a tax. Obama never used the law as a tax. The law, as Congress passed it, is unconstitutional because Congress has no power to create universal healthcare either under the Necessary and Proper clause or the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court decided it was a tax, despite Congressional intent, and erroniously held the law is proper under the Taxing power. 2 seperate things.
Members of Congress swear to uphold the Constitution. Perhaps those Members who voted in favor of the law should be expelled for bad behavior, similar to what Congress did in 1866 to pass the Civil Rights Act.
Clean House need say more
Response to #1:
Congress refused to seat Southern representatives in 1866. This of course was a political question,m not a question for the Court. Considering the blunder of Dred Scott (1858, substantive due process, forerunner of the Lochner line of cases and the Griswold line of cases including Roe v Wade, Lawrence v Texas etc.) and the consequential dissolution of the Union, the Court was not going to get involved.
With that said, the Radical Republican theory of state annihilation has no basis in history or law. Lincoln and Johnson were right in that the states still existed and that the president could use his power to pardon individual offenders. States do not need federal sanction for their existence–if the United States were to dissolve the states would still continue.
This same Congress of 1866 passed the Tenure of Office Act which was clearly unconstitutional, although it never reached the Court. Johnson was impeached for its violation.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, was ruled unconstitutional, as applied to private actors.
So I do not think it we should be looking to the Congress of 1866!
To #3-
My parellel to 1866 was only in regard to suspending Congressional Members for bad behavior. In 1866 the Courts did not get involved; Northern Congressman suspended Southern Congressman for leaving Washington and working with the Confedaracy. Similarly, one can argue that the Congressmen who supported Obamacare violated the Constitution, which they swore to uphold, and should be suspended for bad behavior. Because the Southerners were suspended, the Northerner led Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Dred Scott was not a blunder. As a question of law it was the right decision. Morally Dred Scott was a terrible decision, but that was not the issue before the court.
Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade were more about the penumbras of various amendments, and less about substantive due process.