MEMO FOR THE MOVEMENT:
RE: The mandate under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid healthcare legislation requiring American citizens to purchase health insurance violates the U.S. Constitution.
ACTION: We urge you to make this point to members of the U.S. Senate—and if a bill passes the Senate to impress upon members of both chambers of Congress—that the key provision in the healthcare legislation violates the U.S. Constitution.
ISSUE: Mandating that individuals must obtain health insurance, and imposing any penalty—civil or criminal—on any private citizen for not purchasing health insurance is not authorized by any provision of the U.S. Constitution. As such, it is unconstitutional, and should not survive a court challenge on that issue. Supporters of the legislation have incorrectly contended that the legal justification for the mandate is authorized by the Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause, or the Taxing and Spending Clause. Given that this mandate provision is essential to Obamacare; its unconstitutionality renders the entire program untenable.
- The individual mandate is unconstitutional unless there is a specific constitutional provision that authorizes it. The federal government is a government of limited jurisdiction. It has only enumerated powers. Therefore unless a specific provision of the Constitution empowers a particular law, then that law is unconstitutional. There is no such authorization for the mandate.
- The individual mandate is not authorized by the Commerce Clause. Most of those advocating the Democrats’ bill say that Congress can pass this legislation pursuant to its power to regulate interstate commerce. That argument is incorrect, because there is no interstate commerce when private citizens do not purchase health insurance.
- The Commerce Clause only covers matters where citizens engage in economic activity. The last time the Supreme Court struck down a law for violating the Commerce Clause, in United States v. Morrison (2000), the Court did so on the grounds that the activity in question was not an economic activity.
- The Commerce Clause only extends to persons or organizations voluntarily engaging in commercial activity. Government can only regulate economic action; it cannot coerce action on the part of private citizens who do not wish to participate in commerce. In the most expansive case for Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court upheld the agricultural regulation in question against a wheat farmer who earned his entire living from growing and selling wheat, making him a willing participant in interstate commerce.
- The Commerce Clause requires an actual economic effect, not merely a congressional finding of an economic effect. When the Court struck down the Violence Against Women Act in United States v. Morrison (2000), the Court noted that although the statute made numerous findings regarding the link between such violence and interstate commerce, it held that those findings did not actually establish an economic effect. Therefore the various interstate-commerce findings in the Senate version of the “Obamacare” legislation do not make the bill constitutional.
- The individual mandate is not authorized under the General Welfare Clause. The Supreme Court made clear in United States v. Butler (1936) and Helvering v. Davis (1937) that the General Welfare Clause only applies to congressional spending. It applies to money going out from the government; it does not confer or concern any government power to take in money, such as would happen with the individual mandate. Therefore the mandate is outside the scope of the General Welfare Clause.
- The individual mandate is not authorized under the Taxing and Spending Clause or Income Tax. The Constitution only allows certain types of taxation from the federal government.
- The Article I Taxing and Spending Clause permits duties, imposts, excises and capitation taxes — duties, imposts and excises are taxes on purchases. A capitation tax is a tax that every person must pay, and the Constitution’s apportionment rule requires that every person in each state must pay exactly the same amount. The Obamacare mandate is imposed on people who are making no purchase, and is a tax that some people in a state would pay, but others do not.
- The Sixteenth Amendment allows an income tax. An income tax is imposed only on earnings, but people would have to pay this tax even if they had no income.
Therefore it cannot be any of these constitutionally-permitted taxes.
- The individual mandate is unconstitutional regardless of whether there are criminal penalties involved. There is no distinction between criminal and civil penalties for determining the constitutionality of legislation, and the penalty imposed in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was not a criminal penalty. Therefore even if the criminal sanctions were removed from the legislation, the imposition of any penalty or consequence for not purchasing insurance renders the mandate unconstitutional.
- The individual mandate cannot be properly compared to requiring auto insurance. President Obama said in a Nov. 9 interview on ABC television that requiring people to buy health insurance and penalizing those that do not buy is acceptable because people are required to buy car insurance. That statement is untrue.
- Only state governments can require people to get car insurance. While the federal government is limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution, the states have a general police power. The police power enables state governments to pass laws for public safety and public health. The federal government has no general police power, and therefore could not require car insurance.
- States do not require people to purchase car insurance. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. States require people to get insurance only as a condition for those people who voluntarily choose to drive on the public roads. If a person chooses to use public transportation, or use a bicycle instead of a car, or operate a car only on their own property, they are not required to have car insurance, and cannot be penalized for lacking insurance.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE UNCONSTIUTIONALITY OF THE HEALTH CARE MANDATE, PLEASE VISIT THESE WEBSITES:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0049.cfm
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28463.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28620.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28787.html
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/10/30/ken-klukowski-open-letter-pelosi-gibbs-constitution-individual-mandate/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/02/beware-the-health-insurance-police/
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/interview-with-the-president-jail-time-for-those-without-health-care-insurance.html
http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=7a758af3-1b78-be3e-e03a-c0eea6d515c5
12/21/09
(All organizations are listed for identification purposes only)
CONSERVATIVE ACTION PROJECT
Edwin Meese, former Attorney General
Steven G. Calabresi, Professor, Northwestern Law School
Mathew D. Staver, Founder & Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Curt Levey, Executive Director, Committee for Justice
Marion Edwyn Harrison, Past President, Free Congress Foundation
Kenneth Klukowski, Senior Legal Analyst, American Civil Rights Union
Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
J. Kenneth Blackwell, Visiting Professor, Liberty School of Law
Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government
Matt Kibbe, President, FreedomWorks
Jim Martin, President, 60 Plus Association
David McIntosh, former Member of Congress, Indiana
Colin A. Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
Brent Bozell, President, Media Research Center
Brian McManus, Council for Affordable Health Insurance
Karen Kerrigan, President, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
T. Kenneth Cribb, former Counselor to the U.S. Attorney General
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator
