Enforce laws on books, eg immigration, keep banks out of hedge funding
Since the 1930s, the US has transferred governing power from its elected representatives to 83 independent regulatory commissions, law makers, prosecutors, and judges, possessing combined legislative, executive, and judicial powers. They operate outside of the Constitutional system created by the Founding Fathers just 222 years ago, and have established a bureaucratic oligarchy in place of the original Constitutional Republic. They give unelected officials and commissions enormous power to invade and deprive Americans of their rights to life, liberty, and property, and tax without representation.
There are 6 major ills that have transformed the US Constitution of liberty that gave birth to a Republic - into a “Constitution in exile” (a term coined by the brilliant DC Circuit Judge Douglas H Ginsberg) that has given birth to a bureaucratic oligarchy. The principles the government violates that would otherwise constrain government and protect liberty are the following:
1. The Founding Fathers meant to keep tyranny in check and liberty ascendant by preventing any one individual or group from wielding combined legislative, executive and judicial powers. Now the federal bureaucracy wields those powers without accountability to courts, Congress or the American people, and creates almost all laws that govern commerce.
2. No unconstitutional conditions. The government was not meant to have the power to require that a party relinquish a constitutional right as a condition for receiving a federal benefit. The central government ought not be able to make senior’s receipt of social security depend on relinquishment of their right to refuse disclosure of confidential patient records to the bureaucrats.
3. No taxation without representation. Because almost all laws are created by unelected heads of bureaucratic agencies, we are taxed but are not represented in the creation of these laws that govern citizens. The people are sovereign, and so their government is to be based on the consent of the governed.
4. No government beyond the limits of the enumerated powers. Article I to the US Constitution lists specific powers that Congress has, and the 9th & 10th Amendments together with the Necessary and Proper Clause constrain use of those powers to the enumerations.
Since the 1930s, the Congress of the United States has given federal agencies the power to create law governing every aspect of business through an incorrect overblown interpretation of the Commerce Clause. The government is no longer constrained to act within the scope of the powers enumerated in Article I but, instead, governs all aspects of life.
5. No deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Against the backdrop of Franklin D Roosevelt’s court-packing plan, the Justices of the Supreme Court rejected the doctrine of due process, which caused the court to strike down state laws giving individuals economic liberty. Since then no central government restrictions on contracts or economic activity have been ruled unconstitutional, and laws passed have been routinely upheld.
6. No taking of private property for public use without just compensation. The Founding Fathers understood that there may come a need to acquire private property, but wished to allow that acquisition only if essential to pursue an enumerated purpose. In Kelo v City of New London (2005) the Supreme Court upheld the taking of private property not for public use but for the benefit of another private party. The Court erred by allowing this.
What must be done to cure these ills? We must elect to office individuals committed to removing from statutory and regulatory law all provisions that violate the above 6 Constitutional principles. We must appoint to the judiciary those who are committed to reviving them, and will honor them in practice.
Here are 6 solutions to the problems that would restore the US Republic:
1. Revive the Separation of Powers. Now pending before Congress is a Bill of Congressman Ron Paul entitled “The Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act”, HR 3396. This Bill would prevent any federal agency from enforcing any regulation it adopted until such time as the US Congress votes to codify the regulation. That measure would instantaneously restore the separation of powers by denying a regulatory agency the power to make law without action taken by the US Congress.
This legislation would prohibit any federal agency from adjudicating a dispute, but instead be required to file suit against the regulatee in a federal court and pursue redress through that independent legal body.
2. Revive the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine. Congress should conduct a review of existing statutory and regulatory laws and make null and void ones which impose mandates on states and individuals, and which require relinquishing liberty or property.
The Courts should likewise restore the Doctrine in Constitutional jurisprudence.
3. Revive the Doctrine of No Taxation without Representation. This Bill ensures that laws promulgated by independent regulatory agencies (now created by unelected officials) have no legal force or effect until the people elected pass them as laws the way the Constitution prescribes.
Likewise, the Courts should hold regulations ineffectual unless proven required expressly by an Act of Congress, disallowing any misinterpretation by an agency that either exceeds the grant of power or contradicts it.
4. Revive the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. The Supreme Court must void legislation which grants the government power to govern in areas not enumerated in Section 8, held unconstitutional unless necessary for executing an enumerated power.
The Health Reform Bill would be declared unconstitutional, because there is no power enumerated in the US Constitution by which the government can compel citizens to purchase a product, such as health insurance.
5. Revive the Substantive Due Process. Commercial and private contracts are accorded almost no protection against laws and regulations that deprive economic liberty. The US Congress should prohibit agencies of the federal government from enacting rules that violate private contracts and restrict commerce unless those economic activities involve agreements that deny others their rights (fraud or crime).
The Supreme Court should elevate the level of Constitutional protection afforded commerce and private contracts in recognition that these are liberty and property rights indispensable to individual liberty that the Constitution was designed to protect.
6. Revive the Takings Clause. The Supreme Court should never permit
the taking of private property for re-distributive purposes (to provide
one private stakeholder with property held by another) regardless of the alleged public interest justification.
Private property should only be eligible for taking by the government in instances where it is to be dedicated to a public purpose and where there is a compelling necessity to do so in fulfillment of an expressly enumerated government power.
Only then should such a taking be permitted if the government pays the private property owner full market value for the property taken.
