Government Regulated/Run Healthcare Is Unconstitutional - Send this to your Senators and Your Representatives today

By JUDGE ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do." Then he shot back: "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"

Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution.

One of those powers—the power "to regulate" interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of anything it wants to control.
Unfortunately, a notoriously tendentious New Deal-era Supreme Court decision has given Congress a green light to use the Commerce Clause to regulate noncommercial, and even purely local, private behavior. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court held that a farmer who grew wheat just for the consumption of his own family violated federal agricultural guidelines enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Though the wheat did not move across state lines—indeed, it never left his farm—the Court held that if other similarly situated farmers were permitted to do the same it, might have an aggregate effect on interstate commerce.

James Madison, who argued that to regulate meant to keep regular, would have shuddered at such circular reasoning. Madison's understanding was the commonly held one in 1789, since the principle reason for the Constitutional Convention was to establish a central government that would prevent ruinous state-imposed tariffs that favored in-state businesses. It would do so by assuring that commerce between the states was kept "regular."

The Supreme Court finally came to its senses when it invalidated a congressional ban on illegal guns within 1,000 feet of public schools. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause may only be used by Congress to regulate human activity that is truly commercial at its core and that has not traditionally been regulated by the states. The movement of illegal guns from one state to another, the Court ruled, was criminal and not commercial at its core, and school safety has historically been a state function.

Applying these principles to President Barack Obama's health-care proposal, it's clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one's health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.

The same Congress that wants to tell family farmers what to grow in their backyards has declined "to keep regular" the commercial sale of insurance policies. It has permitted all 50 states to erect the type of barriers that the Commerce Clause was written precisely to tear down. Insurers are barred from selling policies to people in another state.

That's right: Congress refuses to keep commerce regular when the commercial activity is the sale of insurance, but claims it can regulate the removal of a person's appendix because that constitutes interstate commerce.

What we have here is raw abuse of power by the federal government for political purposes. The president and his colleagues want to reward their supporters with "free" health care that the rest of us will end up paying for. Their only restraint on their exercise of Commerce Clause power is whatever they can get away with.They aren't upholding the Constitution—they are evading it.

Info to Reach You Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

Please contact your Senator and as many others as possible, especially on the list below today and tomorrow via email, phone calls and fax. There are rumblings that the Dems may push for some kind of a vote on HC tomorrow, Monday, 11.15.09.

A survey showed that 1 fax to Congress equals (is worth) 10 phones and 100 emails. So please do all 3… but fax if you have one 1st, then call, then emails as a back up.

Tell Then:

1.) Mandatory and Government-Run HealthCare is Unconstitutional!!

2.) Junk the entire ObamaCare Monstrosity!

3.) Vote No on ObamaCare and start over after 2010 or 2012 with real reform, incrementally, and begin with fraud or tort reform.

4.) And while you are at it… add in No on Cap and Trade or anymore bailouts or bills that take away our rights.

Read and govern by the Founders meaning of the Constitution and Bill of Rights… no more, no less or you will be voted out or impeached!

RECLAIM YOUR COUNTRY, YOUR LIFE AND YOUR PIECE OF MIND!!

There is a movement underfoot to vote out the entire House and 1/3 of the Senate in the 2010 Elections. I would say… amen with a very few exceptions!!

Please help movement by posting name, elected office, voting record and other relevant info for politicians who must be voted out of office in 2010. Anyone who is voting against the majority of their constituents and the majority of the American people has to go!

Below it the list of culprits on almost everyone’s list to vote out:

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
D, NJ-01 - Rep. Robert Andrews
D, NY-24 -Rep. Michael Arcuri
D, FL-03 - Rep. Corrine Brown
R, LA-02 - Rep. Anh Cao
D, MI-14 - Rep. John Conyers
D, MD-07 -Rep. Elijah Cummings
D, IL-07 - Rep. Danny Davis
D, CT-03 - Rep. Rosa DeLauro
D, MI-15 - Rep. John Dingell
D, TX-25 - Rep. Lloyd Doggett
D, MA-04 -Rep. Barney Frank
D, FL-08 - Rep. Alan Grayson
D, CA-15 - Rep. Michael Honda
D, MD-05 -Rep. Steny Hoyer
D, TX-18 - Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee
D, CA-09 - Rep. Barbara Lee
D, GA-05 - Rep. John Lewis
D, MA-07 -Rep. Edward Markey
D, PA-12 - Rep. John Murtha
D, NY-23 - Rep. Owens
D, CA-08 - Rep. Nancy Pelosi
D, NY-15 - Rep. Charles Rangel
D, CO-03 - Rep. John Salazar
D, FL-20 - Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
D, CA-35 - Rep. Maxine Waters
D, CA-30 - Rep. Henry Waxman
D, NY-09 - Rep. Anthony Weiner
D, FL-19 - Rep. Robert Wexler

SENATE:
D, CO - Sen. Michael Bennet
D, CA - Sen. Barbara Boxer
D, IL - Sen. Roland Burris
D, PA - Sen. Casey
R, ME - Sen. Susan Collins (2014)
D, ND - Sen. Conrad
D, CT - Sen. Chris Dodd
D, IL - Sen. Dick Durbin
D, MN - Sen. Al Franken
D, NY - Sen. Gillibrand
R, SC - Sen. Lindsay Graham
D, MA - Sen. John Kerry
D, VT - Sen. Leahy
D, MI - Sen. Carl Levin
D, MO - Sen. Claire McCaskill
D, NJ - Sen. Menendez
D, NV - Sen. Harry Reid
D, NY - Sen. Chuck Schumer
R, ME - Sen. Olympia Snowe
D, PA - Sen. Arlen Specter
D, VA - Sen. Jim Webb

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FYI: Here is a list for the
Congressional Directory :


Capitol Hill Phone Numbers

Congressional Phone Numbers
Architect of the Capitol (202) 228-1793

Congressional Budget Office (202) 226-2600

Congressional Record (202) 512-0275

Congressional Research Service (202) 707-5700

Federal Register (202) 741-6000

Library of Congress (202) 707-5000

Office of Special Services (202) 224-4048

Postal Operations, House (202) 225-3856

Postal Operations, Senate (202) 224-5353

Senate and House Bill Status (202) 225-1772

U.S. Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121


House Phone Numbers
Democratic Cloak Room (202) 225-7330

Democratic Floor Information (202) 225-7400

Document Room (202) 226-5200

Press Gallery (202) 225-3945

Republican Cloak Room (202) 225-7350

Republican Floor Information (Recorded) (202) 225-7430


Senate Phone Numbers
Democratic Cloak Room (202) 224-4691

Democratic Floor Information (Recorded) (202) 224-8541

Document Room (202) 224-7860

Press Gallery (202) 224-0241

Republican Cloak Room (202) 224-6191

Republican Floor Information (Recorded) (202) 224-8601


Party Phone Numbers
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (202) 863-1500

Democratic Governors Association (202) 772-5600

Democratic National Committee (202) 863-8000

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (202) 224-2447

National Republican Congressional Committee (202) 479-7000

National Republican Senatorial Committee (202) 675-6000

Republican Governor's Association (202) 662-4140

Republican National Committee (202) 863-8000