All Blog Posts Tagged 'Amendment' (129)

In the SCOTUS was there one single Republican from the States suing the Federal Government or either house of the U.S. Congress who even whispered a word about the fact that according to the 9^th and 10^th Amendments, in The Bill of Rights, which refer to the enumerated list in Article I Section 8, that the U.S. Government is only allowed to spend money on or handle only eighteen enumerated items that We The People granted them for the privilege to serve us? NO, there was…

It is sometimes fascinating how certain purposeful intentions and actions can align themselves to the point of convergence. Case in point. I had come to the personal conclusion that Google has and is becoming much too large, too diffuse, too intrusive and much too much part of the problem of loss of privacy on the internet. As a consequence, I…

In the Obamacare decision on Thursday, the five conservative Supreme Court Justices rejected the unlimited scope of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary & Proper Clause envisioned by proponents of federal tort reform bills (especially caps on damages in medical malpractice lawsuits). Justice Roberts was especially deferential to federalism, employing the terms "state sovereignty" and "enumerated powers" often in his decision. Proponents of federal tort reform are among the big losers in…

Last week, scores of influential Catholic and Christian groups publicly backed the principles underlying the lawsuits filed on May 21 by Catholic dioceses and groups against the Obamacare drug and device mandates. The announcements should add considerable pressure on the Obama White House to rescind or amend HHS regulations ordering faith-based groups to engage in health care activities totally contrary to the congregations' religious doctrines.…

Robert Muise, Esq., is the co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center, a nonprofit litigation firm fighting for religious freedom in courtrooms nationwide. AFLC is one of the conservative religious liberty litigation firms that I refer to as the "Trial Lawyers For Religious Freedom," a group that includes the Alliance Defense Fund, the Becket Fund, and and the Thomas More Law Center, which Muise also…

House Republicans on the Energy & Commerce Committee have uncovered evidence of closed-door negotiations between major drugmakers and the Obama Administration in connection with the enactment of Obamacare, under which the former promised to back it with $80 billion in revenues in exchange for the Administration's promise to protect the industry in various ways, e.g., oppose the…

On Monday, 43 Catholic dioceses, organizations and universities sued the Obama administration, in 12 separate suits, to block the imposition of the Obamacare mandate to offer, in health insurance plans, drugs and devices which are forbidden by Catholic teachings, such as contraception and abortifacients. The plaintiffs include the University of Notre Dame (my law school alma mater), the Archdioceses of Washington and New York City, and a number of local affiliates of the national Catholic…

Two things, actually.

First, none of the three are proper subjects for the federal government under the Constitution. Neither domestic relations law governing marriage, nor health care, nor tort law are matters enumerated for the federal government.

Powerful groups on the liberal or conservative side ignore the limits of the Constitution in order to change that in each case. Gay marriage advocates want the federal judiciary or Congress to override state marriage…

I wrote almost two years ago that the right to a civil jury trial, protected in the Seventh Amendment, is the most ignored, unknown and endangered constitutional right in any of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. Not that I needed proof, but I saw it again over the weekend. The "Jeopardy" game show episode broadcast in the Washington, DC, area on…

A hyper-Political Correctness movement is running rampant on our public universities, with taxpayer-funded university bureaucrats and teachers trying to crush the First Amendment rights of students to openly express their faith and conservative political views. Students are reaching out to the top nonprofit pro-religious liberty litigators in America and exercise their God-given right to ask their neighbors and an independent judiciary to stop the universities.

For example, Vanderbilt…

It's an article of faith among those who propose federal limits on awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. They always proclaim that the Texas state law limiting such awards resulted in thousands of doctors moving to the state. Examples:

"This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued." …

There is a frantic drive to remove all discussion or reference to religion from the public square. The enemies of our Republic know that we cannot survive if they can divide us and convince young people that the only morality that matters is whatever feels good and that saying you have compassion for the less fortunate is just as good as actually doing something about it or that it is not how you get good grades, just that you do. 

The increase in pressure to remove…

Columnist Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, who has a strong following among conservatives, has followed the "K Street Republicans vs. Tea Party" for several years and wrote again about the conflict last week. And Carney identifies some of the practical points of conflict between the two groups: "The GOP establishment rallies industry donors…

In a special memorandum issued to House Republicans this week, the four senior House Republicans (Reps. Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy and Hensarling) laid out their plan for implementing a ten-year federal budget under Rep. Paul Ryan's plan and that would avoid cuts in national security and certain domestic programs. In so doing, they thoroughly trashed the concept of state sovereignty over their own…

This week we've been deluged with the reports on the oral argument before the Supreme Court on the Obamacare case. And last week, the House GOP leadership pushed a bill combining federal limits on medical malpractice lawsuits with an attractive bill to repeal a key component of Obamacare.

The two belong together. After all, Obamacare and federal tort reform are equally and fundamentally based on the expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause…

On November 11, Sen. Mike Lee gave a speech to the Federalist Society National Convention in which he explained that he wouldn't vote for a Senate Republican jobs bill because it included a section imposing federal limits on awards in medical malpractice lawsuits (the Senate version of H.R. 5, passed by the House last week).

Sen. Lee discussed the…

This week, the House of Representatives will debate and vote on the fiscal year 2013 budget for the federal government. House Republican leadership supports the budget proposed by House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan. But the Ryan budget dishonors states' and individual rights protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, by proposing to cap non-economic damages in medical liability lawsuits across the country, without respect to existing state law governing civil suits (see…

Diane McFarlin, Publisher of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (SH-T), gave a platform to Caren Lobo (pictured) to attack the free speech rights of Mike Fox. Mrs. Lobo wrote a guest column titled, “A Sarasotans' negative sign”. The column is…

The problem with most of the proposed reforms in H.R. 5 is that the law governing medical malpractice claims is a state issue, not a federal issue. Despite H.R. 5's reliance on the Commerce Clause, Congress has no business (and no authority under the Constitution) telling states what the rules should be governing medical malpractice claims.…

For months, it appeared that House Republicans had largely agreed with conservatives such as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli; Randy Barnett; Senators Tom Coburn and Mike Lee; Tea Party movement leaders such as Judson Phillips and numerous House Republicans that federal tort reform bills violate the states' rights under the 10th Amendment to run their own legal systems without federal interference. There has been no floor action on H.R. 5, a…