It is visibly apparent why a convention of the states is needed for Washington D.C.
Federal regulation, Congressional usurpation of its enumerated Section 8 authority, Supreme Court fast-tracking extra-constitutional policy - the federal government is operating outside its Constitutional authority in every branch of the government. In recent articles, we've examined how the Supreme Court has expedited this careening snowball effect.
Let's review Congressional taxing and spending with a fairly recent Supreme Court case that we remember all too well. Congress has been green-lighted to tax and spend at will thanks to the Sebelius standard.
National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius was a Supreme Court case decided in 2012. This is the famous John Roberts, “it’s a tax, not a penalty...” case.
This case is interesting for a variety of reasons. Notably, it actually did restrict the government’s attempt to use the Commerce Clause to compel commerce, but it then expanded the government’s use of taxing and spending to compel penalties for choosing not to buy health insurance.
It robbed Peter to pay Paul - even when Peter or Paul would greatly expand government overreach into American pocketbooks.
The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress in 2010. This was the government’s attempt to nationalize health insurance, move more people into public exchanges to buy health insurance, expand Medicare, create an individual mandate to buy health insurance, and more.
13 states immediately filed a civil suit against the government; they were joined by 13 more states, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and two individuals.
The plaintiffs argued three things. First, the individual mandate exceeded the government’s Section authority under the Commerce Clause. Second, the Medicaid expansions were unconstitutionally coercive. Third, the employer mandate unconstitutionally interfered with federalism or state sovereignty.
Ultimately, the Court, under the direction of John Roberts, managed to straddle the fence on government taxation. John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, “Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.” In other words, Congress did not have the authority under the Commerce Clause of Article 1, Section 8 to order people to engage in commerce.
However, just a short while later, Roberts writes that Congress does have the Constitutional authority to create a tax for such a mandate, using Congressional Section 8 authority to tax and spend. He writes, in part, “It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.”
The Court goes on further to strike down the Medicaid expansion in the ACA as coercive to state sovereignty.
The takeaway from this case is all too familiar at this point: a runaway Supreme Court has green-lighted yet even more authority to Congress and the Executive Branch.
Instead of these co-equal branches being a check and balance on each other, we see time and again how these branches, their bureaucrats, their staffers and others, have simply given way to each other. Each branch has allowed the other to run away in itself.
Behind Convention of States Action are tens of thousands of everyday working Americans who are tirelessly working across the country, with our more than two million petition signers, and hundreds of state representatives and senators to pass our state applications to hold an Article V convention of the states. Having an Article V convention is the answer we are looking for!
Join our Michigan team! You’ve been informed; now you know! Get active with us!
Start here - with a review of our Facebook Live discussion on this topic.
Sign the petition.
You can read the entire case of National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius here.
