Republican-Led House Working Hard to Fulfill Campaign Promises

            This week, I’d like to devote this entire column to all the work that our new House of Representatives, under the leadership of Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, has done to fulfill their campaign promises to promote jobs and reduce the deficit:

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Law or Politics?

It seems there is a legitimate legal issue to be decided as to whether or not the Health Care Reform Bill, or at least part of it—namely the individual mandate, is constitutional.  There seems to be no doubt that that question will be decided by the Supreme Court.  The judicial system in this country, including and especially the Supreme Court, was intended to be non-partisan and above the fray of politics.  Sadly, this is no longer the case, if indeed it ever was.  In the past, however, judges and justices would at least pretend that their only concern was following the law; they would attempt to avoid appearances that they were influenced by partisan politics.  Now, not so much.

            To date, we have seen four federal district judges rule on the new health care law—2 of them, appointed by President Clinton, upheld it and the other 2, appointed by Republican presidents, struck it down—one in its entirety and the other only the individual mandate portion.  Judge Roger Vinson, appointed by President Reagan, this week ruled the entire law to be unconstitutional, but he did not stop there.  His 78-page opinion did not merely cite the law as he reads it, but he apparently had no qualms about waxing long and hard on his political leanings—even to the point of pandering to Tea Party conservatives by using the original Boston Tea Party in his discussion of unlimited government powers.  According to Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor, these sorts of political commentaries have no place in a legal opinion.

            Currently and in the very recent past we have seen more and more politics in play in our Judiciary—up to and including the Supreme Court.  We are used to hearing the Republicans cry foul and complain of “judicial activism” when a ruling doesn’t go their way, but apparently “activist judges” aren’t a problem for them when they make decisions they like.  Personally, I don’t like it either way.  I would like to have faith in our judicial system that they will follow the law and only the law.  Regrettably, I cannot.

Conservatives have called Justice Antonin Scalia the model of a judge who isn’t an activist.  And yet, just last week he held a seminar on constitutional issues with the Tea Party Caucus.  Did they perhaps discuss the Health Reform Law and how best to present their case to the Supreme Court when it comes before them?  We don’t know because the event was closed to the press.

Then there is Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife, Virginia, founded the Tea Party PAC, Liberty Central, and is a long-time outspoken conservative activist.  Now, I am totally in favor of the wives of powerful men having their own careers and their own voices, but can we really believe that Justice Thomas will not be influenced by his wife when some of these issues come before him?—Especially when his wife publicly suggested on Liberty Central’s website that the recently passed health care legislation was unconstitutional.  Now, I might be willing to give Justice Thomas a pass and say that I was sure he would not let his wife’s political leanings influence him in any decisions he might have to make as a Supreme Court Justice if he had a history of being a paragon of ethical discretion.  That, however, couldn’t be further from reality.  Only a few weeks ago, he was called to task by the watchdog group, Common Cause, for neglecting to report nearly $700,000 of income earned by his wife on financial disclosure forms that are required by law.

"It has come to my attention that information regarding my spouse's employment required in Part III B of my financial disclosure report was inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions," Thomas wrote in a letter to the committee that handles the reports.

"Justice Thomas sits on the highest court of the land, is called upon daily to understand and interpret the most complicated legal issues of our day and makes decisions that affect millions," Common Cause president Bob Edgar said after viewing the amendment. "It is hard to see how he could have misunderstood the simple directions of a federal disclosure form. We find his excuse is implausible."

            So, no, even aside from the Anita Hill sexual harassment charges against him nearly 20 years ago (which I always believed were true), I don’t give Justice Thomas props for integrity and ethics.

            Most court-watchers now believe that the issue of the constitutionality of the health care bill will now come down to which Supreme Court Justices were appointed by a Democrat or Republican President.  It is believed that 4 will vote to uphold the law and 4 will vote against it.   In spite of the fact that 69,456,897 Americans voted for Barack Obama who campaigned on health care reform—in spite of the fact that 218 House Representatives and 60 Senators voted for health care reform, it will now come down to one single vote from one man, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was not elected by anyone, to determine the fate of this law.  He was appointed by President Reagan.  Will he decide based on law or politics?

JOB ONE: JOBS (Or Is It?)

            Jobs, jobs, jobs—the new Republican House Leadership made it very clear what their top priority would be in the new 112^th Congress—J-O-B-S—Jobs.  They made it clear after the election on November 18^th when the new leaders-to-be held a press conference.

            Speaker Designate (at the time) John Boehner began by saying, “Republicans have made a pledge to America to listen to the American people and a pledge to focus on their priorities, and that's exactly what we are going to do.  We are going to focus on creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress does its business.  We are going to fight for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable Federal Government here in Washington, D.C.”  

             He was followed by Republican Leader, Eric Cantor, “We are going to be a results driven Congress.  Job one is for us to cut Federal spending and to remove the uncertainty that has been hampering job creation over the last several years in this country.”

            Followed by Republican Whip, Kevin McCarthy,  “…And you will find that our whole focus will be about job creation, reducing spending, and, more importantly, changing the reform of Congress itself.”

            Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling said, “The American people spoke loudly on election day.  They said, we want more jobs.  We want less spending.  We want a Federal Government that is less intrusive and more accountable.  And more importantly, they said, we want to save the American dream, an American dream where our children can still have greater opportunities and a brighter future than we have had.”

            Freshman Representative-Elect Kristi Noem did not mention the word “jobs” in her comments, but she did say, “…So we ran campaigns and asked the American people not to just listen to what we said, but watch what we do when you elect us.  We plan to deliver results.”

            All that sounded good to me.  So I’m watching and I’m listening.  So far, of course, we know that their first act was to repeal the Health Care Reform bill passed in 2010.  Unfortunately, the only thing that this act had to do with creating jobs was by inserting the words “job killing” in its title.  All the experts, including and especially the non-partisan experts, agree that the Health Care Reform Act passed last year will cut the deficit and repealing it would increase the deficit.  And even the Republicans agree that the best way to create jobs is by cutting the deficit.  Therefore, if a grade was to be given in terms of them living up to their promise that their first priority would be jobs—it would have to be an “F” on this first action.

            Well, maybe they will make J.O.B.S. their second priority…no, hold on…the next pressing item on their agenda is a bill sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (NJ), “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” introduced on January 20^th.  One might wonder what this bill has to do with jobs…me, too.  One might also wonder why we need another bill that prohibits federal funding of abortions when we already have one—The Hyde Amendment, which has been in place in one form or another since 1976 and was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1980.  Presently, it prohibits federal funding of abortions excepting only when the life of the mother is at stake or in the cases of rape and incest.  This new bill to prohibit by law what is already prohibited by law would go quite a bit further though by eliminating the ability to claim the cost of your own private medical insurance premiums on your tax returns if that policy contains a provision covering abortions.  This would effectively eliminate private insurance companies from covering abortions because no one would want to buy them if they were going to be penalized in that way.

            In addition, we learned this week that our new Senator, Rand Paul, is going to take his first major action in the Senate by co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which would overturn Roe v. Wade by declaring a fetus at the moment of conception a person.  Paul apparently wants the federal government to monitor every single pregnancy in the United States to make sure it results in a live birth.  I have more than just a few issues with this.  I guess it would create jobs, though.  I mean, just think how many investigators, prosecutors and staff it would take to do all this monitoring and enforcing.  But then, how would we cut federal spending by adding all these new jobs to the government payroll?  My real question for Rand Paul, though, is how do you square this with your claim that you are in favor of a less invasive and intrusive government?  The way I see it, you can’t get any more invasive than this.

            I’ve always had an issue with the “pro-life” label that those who want to dictate what women can and can’t do with their bodies like to call themselves.  It pre-supposes that those of us who believe that the issue is really about privacy and personal choice are “anti-life.”  We are not.  We do not advocate abortion.  We simply believe that such a decision is and should be between a woman and her God; and her husband if she is married or her parents if she is a minor.  The government should stay out of it along with self-righteous religious zealots who think they have some sort of moral obligation to tell the rest of the world how to live.  (We’ve all heard of the “pro-life” fanatics who murder to get their point across—how does THAT work????)

            But, I digress.  The issue is jobs—J-O-B-S, jobs—or, is it really?