Obama’s Veto Will Be For Partisan Rather Than Constitutional Reasons

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Yes, we’re going to go down the road of constitutional fantasy land for just a moment.  This could be another exercise in civics.  Why should the President of the United States, why should that veto pen of his have such grave or awesome power?  To answer that query is to answer the purpose of why we have a written constitution to begin with.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I want you to think about this for just a moment.  Yes, we’re going to go down the road of constitutional fantasy land for just a moment.  This could be another exercise in civics.  Why should the President of the United States, why should that veto pen of his have such grave or awesome power?  To answer that query is to answer the purpose of why we have a written constitution to begin with.  The reason we have a written constitution is to lay out and prescribe the order in which the acts of the federal union are legally executed.  In the chain of events that causes a bill to be proposed, and then to be debated, and then to be voted on, and then to become actually part of law under the Constitution of the United States, this is all spelled out in Article I of the Constitution.  There’s no way to get to the president’s desk without at least pretending like you’re following the Constitution.  As per last week’s discussion, if revenues originate in the Senate, you’re not obeying the Constitution, but we’ll leave the question aside for just a moment.

The president is the last person in the chain of events.  He is there in this capacity in order to — this is why his oath was added into Article II — he is there to see to it that should the Congress or Senate or both of them together, should they err or should they make a mistake in executing their duty, should they have left the shackles and chains which are supposed to bind them down, which is the Constitution and the enumerated powers that they have actually been assigned, and should they conceive of or propose legislation that exceeds the powers granted to the general government of the United States, it is the president’s sworn duty — he swore an oath, and in Obama’s case he had to swear it twice because he screwed it up the first time.  He didn’t screw it up the second time, but the first time he took the oath, remember he got it wrong and John Roberts delivered it wrong and they had to go back in a private ceremony to take the oath again.  Why does he have to take an oath?  He has to take an oath to protect and defend that piece of parchment paper called the Constitution.  It’s on him to protect the Constitution.

This is going to sound unbelievably ironic to some of you and unpalatable to some of you, but consider this for just a moment.  Should the House and Senate agree, and should they send something over that has an adjustment of the Affordable Care Act in it, meaning it has the Affordable Care Act in it, and should Obama veto it, he actually would be discharging his constitutional duty.  Regardless of what the chief justice of the Supreme Court in his errant opinion of June last says, the ACA is not within the powers of the general government.  We know this.  We have this on good authority.  We have lots of American history to back this up.  We have the veto message of President Franklin Pierce back in 1854 laying out the course and saying specifically that Congress may not assume any of those powers or any of those responsibilities that were left to the states when it comes to the health, wellbeing, safety, and welfare of the people that reside in the several states.  This should all be settled.  I realize it’s not.  I don’t expect it to come back anytime soon, but the facts are the facts.  If the bill actually made it to Obama’s desk and he vetoed it, he actually would be doing us all a favor and actually would be discharging his constitutional duty.  That’s not why he’s going to veto it.

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Think about this for a moment.  In years gone by when the president has vetoed any piece of legislation, if we look at the papers of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, if we look at the papers all the way up through cool Cal Coolidge, you will see in presidential vetoes that were the Constitution.  Each of those presidents will cite some codicil or some act or section of the Constitution that has been violated or has been done damage by the act of the Senate or the Congress and the Senate concurring.  Each of those presidents is very clear about why.

None of it has to do with protecting the American people.  None of it has to do with any of this sophistry about the lives and fortunes and all these things that are allegedly at stake here.  None of it has to do with any of that.  I looked it up last night.  In each and every instance, you will find the word “Constitution.”  You will find the reasoning for the vetoes in the Constitution.  That is not why the president is threatening to veto a law or an act that comes to his desk that has an abridgement or adjustment to the Affordable Care Act.  He is threatening to veto it for his own partisan and his own selfish interests.  Because it’s been derisively called Obamacare, he’s not going to let that get past his desk.  This is another dereliction of duty by President Obama and by the Obama administration.

I bring to you now, probably for the first time in your life, the first veto issued under the Constitution.  This is issued by President Washington on 5 April 1792.  It is very instructive because it is a solemn duty that you can tell Washington is taking very solemnly.  He’s vetoing this act, but he’s being very specific to say: Look, I don’t want to mess with you guys, but if we’re going to have this written constitution thingy here, we’re going to have to actually obey it.  We can’t look for reasons to try and circumvent it, no matter how much we’d like to.  On 5 April 192, the President of the United States, George Washington, the first president, issued the first veto.  This is what it reads:

[reading]

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives

I have maturely considered the Act passed by the two Houses, intitled, “An Act for an apportionment of Representatives among the several States according to the first enumeration,” and I return it to your House, wherein it originated, with the following objections.

Mike Church Show Transcript – What Is The Alternative To The Legislative Process?

First—The Constitution has prescribed that representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers: and there is no one proportion or divisor which, applied to the respective numbers of the States will yield the number and allotment of representatives proposed by the Bill.

Second—The Constitution has also provided that the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand; which restriction is, by the context, and by fair and obvious construction, to be applied to the seperate and respective numbers of the States: and the bill has allotted to eight of the States, more than one for thirty thousand.

George Washington
5 April 1792
Philadelphia

[end reading]

Mike:  Washington sends the bill back and says there are two constitutional problems.  He’s being a stickler here.  He’s reading Article I.  Of course, he was in the federal convention that drafted the Constitution.  He’s reading Article I going: You guys can’t do that.  There’s nothing in the new constitution that says you guys can apportion representation federally speaking without — it is to be apportioned by states.  It should come as no surprise that those that were telling Washington he had to veto it were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, who was the first attorney general of the United States, and others were telling him he had to veto it.  It should also come as no surprise who was telling him not to veto it: Treasury Secretary Hamilton and Secretary of War Henry Knox.  The usual suspects of nationalist versus federalist — how ironic is that, those that called themselves federalists were actually nationalists, and those that were derisively called republicans were actually federalists, meaning federal distribution of power.

In the early days of the early republic, you see right there in front of you that the reason you veto things is to protect your oath of office and to protect and defend the Constitution.  That is not why President Obama is threatening to veto anything that comes out of the House or Senate that has any damage to his precious Obamacare / Affordable Care Act.  He is then, for very partisan and very self-interested reasons, it is he that is actually responsible for shutting the federal government down.

What I also find just painfully absent from all the discussion, and it doesn’t matter what channel you turn to, it’s irrelevant, immaterial, doesn’t matter what channel you’re on, what station you’re on, what radio show you’re listening to, what television show, what blog you’re reading, few people have endeavored to connect the dots.  The House of Representin’ — and we’ve been over this thousands of times on this show.  Let’s go over it one more time because you’re going to be out there in the workforce today and you’re going to get in arguments around the water cooler about this government shutdown nonsense.

Founders TV – The Power of the Veto: What Will Obama Do?

The House of Representin’ is the legislative body wherein the people’s will, the vox populi, is to be expressed.  Again, those that are saying in the United States Senate — I don’t care which one it is, whether it’s Cruz or Paul or Lee or whatever, to me this is just another one of the mistaken directions and the mistaken paths that our magisterial government is on.  The Senate is to protect the legislative interests of the states.  That’s what it’s there for.  It is not there to represent the will of the people.  That’s what the House is there for.

If the House of Representin’ is controlled or run by and has enough votes in it to undo damage to the Constitution and to the people the Constitution is supposed to serve and protect, if in that House is supposed to reside the voice of the people, and if the House is being told they need to undo the damage that is the Affordable Care Act, then that’s their job. That’s what they’re supposed to do.  They’re not supposed to make a deal.  They’re supposed to, number one, obey their oath of office, and number two, in obeying their oath of office, what is permissible under the Constitution.  Most of us agree that the Affordable Care Act is not.  To act, partially at least, in the manner in which they’re acting, they’re actually doing what they’re supposed to do.  The Senate, in my view, is not, and the president, in my view, is not.

That’s not a statement of partisanship, by the way.  It wouldn’t matter to me which party was running which branch of the government.  I look at this with blinders on.  Many of you are going to look at this through partisan lenses, [mocking] “This is just the Democrats.  This is all the Democrats’ fault.”  Do you really think, really, seriously, that these guys aren’t going to make a deal?  Do you really think the Affordable Care Act is actually going to be stabbed in the heart and stopped in the Congress?  Do you really think that?  They could, but how many of you actually believe that?  There can’t be five of you out there that actually think that’s going to happen.  You may wish for it to happen, but you cannot possibly believe that it is.

So what are we witnessing here?  We’re witnessing one big, giant temper tantrum by a spoiled rotten country, filled with people that believe they are entitled to the wages that other people are going to earn today.  They’re going to use their federal government.  And to add insult to injury and to pour salt into a gaping, bleeding wound, they’re going to use the Constitution of the United States to effect this.  This would be an average day at work for your average resident of Parasitistan, those that subsist off this leviathan, as we call it.  We’d all be going about our business if there wasn’t some politics in play here.  No one thinks, you can’t possibly believe, no one can honestly think that this is actually going to result in the ACA being overturned.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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