Senate Proceeding 11-29-11 on Nov 29th, 2011 :: 4:37:00 to 4:50:00
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4:36:56 to 4:37:18( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: mr. grassley: when congress passed the health care reform law, it imposed a mandate on individuals who lacked health insurance to purchase it. since then, a number of courts have held that the individual mandate exceeds the power of congress to regulate interstate commerce. the supreme court will soon hear

4:37:00 to 4:50:00( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Chuck Grassley

4:37:19 to 4:37:39( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: a case on this very question. the supreme court, which usually gives a case one hour of oral argument, is giving the various issues in this case five this is a modern record. the supreme court should exercise its power of judicial

4:37:40 to 4:38:00( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: review carefully. one of its major judicial restraint is that an act of congress is presumed to be constitutional. but this is a presumption that can be rebutted. it derives from the respect that one branch of government gives to reviewing the actions of

4:38:01 to 4:38:23( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: other branches. if congress has made a determination that a statute is constitutional, the supreme court should give that finding some level of deference. but the presumption rests on the promise -- on the premise that congress has made a considered judgment on the constitutionality of laws that

4:38:24 to 4:38:44( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: it passes. but in the case of the health care reform bill, this did not happen. republicans raised a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate that was brushed aside by democrats, who favored the bill as a policy matter, and were not going to let a serious constitutional

4:38:45 to 4:39:05( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: issue get in the way of passing that law. in fact, we know that there is no congressional consideration of the constitutionality of this unprecedented restriction of the freedom of american citizens that's involved with congress

4:39:06 to 4:39:26( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: mandating the purchase of health insurance. i mean unprecedented in a literal way. congress has never before discovered or exercised this power in modern 200 -- in more than 200 years of the country's history. and since congress has never

4:39:27 to 4:39:50( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: before imposed a requirement to purchase a product, no supreme court precedent has ever found that congress may do so. instead, apart from the regulation of items such as navigable waterways or communication lines, the supreme court has always discussed the subject that

4:39:51 to 4:40:13( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: congress may regulate under the commerce claws as -- clause as activities. in other words, doing something, not enactivity. so let me emphasize the courts have never held that congress can use its commerce power to regulate inactivity or require people to engage in commerce.

4:40:14 to 4:40:35( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: the court has found that congress cannot regulate interstate economic activity that in combination do not affect commerce, and congress cannot regulate noneconomic activities such as carrying a gun in a school zone. so it should be

4:40:36 to 4:40:59( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: congress cannot regulate inactivity such as a thought or a decision not to purchase health insurance. congress has great power under the commerce clause to reduce individual freedom and that great power under the commerce clause goes back to 1942 under

4:41:00 to 4:41:24( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: the wick earth versus filburn case in which a farmer could be penalized for exceeding a quota on the amount of wheat he could produce even when the excess went for providing food for his own farm and his own livestock. and that the commerce clause decision has allowed congress to

4:41:25 to 4:41:45( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: pass many significant regulate laws pursuant to wicker such as environmental laws, drug laws, public accommodation provisions of civil rights laws. but in every such case the regulated person retained freedom to avoid being regulated if he wanted to exercise that

4:41:46 to 4:42:06( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: freedom. a person, for instance, a person who did not want to comply with environmental laws could simply stop engaging in the activity that fell under the environmental laws. or another example, a person who did not want to be subject to drawing laws could -- drug

4:42:07 to 4:42:27( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: laws could avoid transporting drugs. and a person who did not want to adhere to public accommodation requirements of law under the commerce clause could leave the public accommodation business. now, the individual mandate is entirely different.

4:42:28 to 4:42:48( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: the mandate requires people to take action, and there is no escape from this requirement. a person cannot opt out of the activity that triggers the regulation because the mandate applies even to inactivity. if the person is alive, then he or she has to buy health

4:42:49 to 4:43:11( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: insurance. that is a serious and novel threat to individual freedom. congress has offered incentives to change people's behavior when it comes to health care reform or maybe some other things, but it is hard to see why congress would do that if it had the

4:43:12 to 4:43:33( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: power it now claims to force people to buy a particular goods or services. under this logic, congress could require people to buy new g.m. cars so it would not have enacted -- would not have had to enact cash for clunkers as we

4:43:34 to 4:43:55( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: did here two or three years ago. similarly, this supposed to power -- supposed power would allow congress to order people to pay money to third parties rather than raising taxes, or it could reach a decision upholding the mandate would permit congress to keep beef prices high by requiring

4:43:56 to 4:44:16( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: vegetarians to buy beef. members of congress could use this supposed commerce clause power entrenching themselves into office by requiring people to buy houses or cars or other products in areas where their political party has its base of support. despite the arguments of the

4:44:17 to 4:44:37( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: obama administration, the power it claims that congress can use to compel people to buy goods and services is -- is not unique to health care. the judges who -- the judges who are honest recognize that if congress can force people to buy

4:44:38 to 4:45:01( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: insurance, congress can force the purchase of any product or service. it can regulate inactivity because that inactivity can affect interstate commerce. this conclusion is consistent with the opinion of the congressional budget office,

4:45:02 to 4:45:23( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: because there was a 1994 memo in which c.b.o. wrote that -- quote -- "a mandate issuing government could lead in the extreme to a command economy in which the president and the congress dictated how much each individual and families spent on

4:45:24 to 4:45:45( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: all goods and services" -- end of quote. in june of this year the supreme court unanimously decided in the bond case that an individual not only a state, could challenge the constitutionality of a federal statute as exceeding the

4:45:46 to 4:46:06( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: power of congress to enact under the tenth amendment. this court wrote -- quote -- "by beginning he denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power. when government acts in excess

4:46:07 to 4:46:27( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: of its lawful power, that liberty is at stake." that's a quote from the bond case, unanimously decided in june this year by the supreme court. the court now -- or the case now before the supreme court raises first principles about our republic.

4:46:28 to 4:46:51( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: the people are the sovereign in our country. the government serves th people, not the other wa around. that is enforced through a constitution that gives congress just limited power. in "the federalist papers," james madison wrote that the powers of the federal government

4:46:55 to 4:47:20( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: are few and defines and the powers of the state are many and undefined. and although there is much more interstate commerce in today's economy than there was in 1787, the power is still limited, the constitution has not been changed to that extent. now, if congress can require americans to buy goods and

4:47:21 to 4:47:41( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: services that congress chooses americans buy without a limiting principle, then there is no limited federal government. there would be no issue that congress could not address at the federal level. government would not be limited, it would be omnipotent. there would be no range of state powers that the federal

4:47:42 to 4:48:02( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: government could not usurp. the 10th amendment then would become a dead-letter, as there would be no powers reserved to the states. congress has ceded its enumerated powers in passing -- exceeded its enumerated powers in passing the amendment, in an

4:48:03 to 4:48:23( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: attempt to create an all-powerful federal government that posed a threat to liberty that the supreme court unanimously warned against in the bond case decided unanimously june of this year. all the supreme court need do to strike down the mandate is to adhere to its position in bond.

4:48:24 to 4:48:45( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: if it departs from that view and up holds the mandate -- and uphole the mandate, then our -- and upholds the mandate, then our hope for liberty may rest in a precedent of a case pending in the d.c. circuit case. judge kavanaugh wrote that a

4:48:46 to 4:49:06( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: president is not required to enforce a statute that regulates private individuals that the president believes is unconstitutional. this is true even when a court has held a statute to be constitutional. so, mr. president, the upcoming supreme court decision on constitutionality of the

4:49:07 to 4:49:29( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: individual mandate is important not only for the fate provision but for its effects on the powers of the federal government and, of course, on the very survival of individual economic liberty. i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk

4:49:30 to 4:49:35( Edit History Discussion )

Chuck Grassley: will call the roll.