Bob Smith: Proposition 13 was a constitutional amendment, not a statute. That’s why it was binding on future California legislatures.The logical difference is that the supermajority rule isn’t a statute, it’s a rule of order. Congress can’t bind itself by statute. The argument that this bill is a change of procedure, not a change of rule, is absurd. Isn’t the procedure itself defined by a rule? If not, how is the procedure defined? How can you change the procedure prescribed by a rule without that being an implicit change of the rule?I would further argue that since we are not playing Nomic, we can’t create rules that can’t be amended.

So, this whole health care issue goes by the wayside if republicans just develop an amendment to the constitution that forbids the state from requiring individuals to purchase health insurance? That way the supermajority requirement is effectively bypassed?

Thanks,

As for this $100,trillion dollar in site………….
Results 1 – 10 of about 685,000 for net worth of medicine development industry
Just to show how deep this Health Care Tax split petition reaches. The term split petition is used because of the Tax factor plan that is not seen because of the intent not to show a capital Taxing of close to a $100 trillion dollar package, a yearly system income, not profit…..

Some have stated that I clam to have spiritual in site or something of the sort. I assure you this is not true, so when I state that I asked God to help, it is my way of saying hey Bobby show me how to work on theses Chevy engines. But I do thank you for the consideration. Consider me a cross of Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hill Billies with my 10th. Grade education and Vin Diesel from the move Pitch Black.
So drop on by and see page 100 at our site and follow the blue pill link

Health Care within a moral value, is to ,

{ GIVE LIFE TO HOPE WHERE THERE IS NONE }

Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward
http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com on google. yahoo, and Aol.com
please take the time and visit all my new friends on the net and if you wish to post with FASC Concepts you will be most welcomed. So join us and share your ideas as one in one voice.

On page 100 at our site is the early stages of what is called A Prime Directive for Health Care, so please drop on by and see 173 million peoples views in and for Health Care. And it should be known that this information on page 100 is true and documented in Law and History.
Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward
http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com on google look for page 1 American dream official site.

So this is Health Care Reform at its best, please allow me to share a concept that will open your mind in a way never thought of for a United Forum Concept. At first I stood alone and I wrote my first blog and little did I know that thousands of people and companies stood by it,
I have waited to see the issues of tax increase and health care, something that may be wrote by President Obama,
You see a lot of what I write, is in fact that, I do not seek Political support because I do not belong to any party. As for President Obama and theses 60 people that hold seat of Government who wish to build 1900 page of law to Govern this system because of this Health Care dollar. I watch them stumble about without a clue of how to fix this failed system. To see into this failure, you must allow this system to be seen as a forum for dollars of taxes created as a constant as a yearly figure. This prediction of dollar for the future, is in fact what I call Artificial Intelligence built on the hope that taxes will stay a constant figure.
To state it simple if Health Care Insurance Companies Unite and hand over this issue then the Officials of Government then they will have have no choice but to turn their eye to the companies of medication and medical supplies and hospitals and Doctors who charge cost that is the cause and effect of this failure within this system.
This Health Care Forum we offer is built on a moral value, a strategic forum to place issues to work ,that offers freedom to be a part of it or not. This force pay against companies, force pay against VETS, and so on shows the lack of a moral building block within this Health Care Reform.
What we offer is that, will, Lets use the AARP Health Care Insurance Company, and lets say that they have 30 million members. To show that this company can earn $150 million dollars per month and be released from the burden of medical cost, by what we wish to show as health care tax forum and a freedom of choice for a pay in to a forum to a Insurance Company for people who do not trust this system within The United States Government. A tax forum forces the Government system to work for the people and at the same time forces Government Officials to work for the people within this forum.
To reach out to a company and sit down with them to build something never attempted in order to rebuild lives and the National Security of The United States as a moral building block without laws to Govern, but to protect this system from crime is what a moral law use to stand for.
To show a $100 trillion dollar strategic building block by companies of freewill that step forward to help rebuild America. To build the most powerful anti war / crime forum ever conceived by such as I a nobody that only seek to only go back to work as a painter and rebuild his little company dream.
As stated at first I stood alone against so many and I have found the uniting of people of different faith that seeks the same as I do. What makes FASC Concepts different, we do not ask for money and we opened a door for people to put their faith into themselves as a person and not what we say, to build on this and protect it under the concepts of law such as the Patriot Act. {A Moral Concept}
There is a day coming that Officials of Government will see that the Laws built against God and Country was the first steps of the United States Of America headed for failure because it lacks moral value. This is what our enemies see, a Country of Laws that should of never been created by few against so many people of the USA.
Is it so hard to see a concept for a Health Care Stimulus Package that builds jobs and life within a anti / crime forum ?
Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward
found on google.com. And yahoo look for page 1 american dream offical site.

Russell Sutherland: The current Congress has enacted a unique section within it’s Healthcare bill. Congressional legislation, as I understand it, cannot be immune from future change without an amendment to the Constitution. Why have constitional amendments if Congress can pass binding legislation? Another disturbing concern is that a Supreme Court with a liberal majority can declare this binding section constitional.The good of the Country now is in the hands of Congressional members that face re-election this year. They must consider their future if they vote for this unprecedanted legislation.

First, the Constitution is an entrenched law by its very nature, since it provides the basic foundational rules for making laws. Posner, if he is to be taken seriously, now claims that the only formal difference between the Constitution and subsequent legislation, regardless of how trivial (our cabbage regulations, for instance), is that the Constitution came first; so that any congressional majority can by virtue of mere temporal priority handcuff future majorities (even if they are larger!) in the same way that the Constitution does.

The Constitution is a social contract that is binding through the generations. It is the stuff we put in history textbooks so that children develop reverence for it. It is part of the national fabric. To say that any old law can rise to that status is laughable. But even then, the Constitution in and of itself would be ineffective if it were not held in some form of esteem by the public. It is, like any law, just a bit of ink spilled on paper. It is the Constitution’s effectiveness over the generations that entitles it to its supreme position in the legal canon. And it is through that supremacy that the provisions of entrenchment it contains are binding. If the Constitution were grossly misconceived, (for instance, if it were made impossible to amend) all of its binding provisions would be for naught. Similarly, a Congress that passes a law with a 60 vote majority in very peculiar circumstances (one of the major parties having lost credibility) that prohibits its repeal by a 62 vote majority is not to be taken seriously. The entrenched provision is moot simply because it makes a mockery of law and cannot command the respect of any person of even modest intelligence. It is a contemptible statute that will be treated accordingly.

Then Posner makes the ludicrous claim that such binding provisions are analogous to starting a war or borrowing money because all of these act have consequences for future Congresses. Does he think we are three years of age? ALL laws have consequences for future Congresses and generations. The issue is what those consequences are. A truly analogous situation is a Congress that goes into debt and then asserts that no congress is allowed to pay it back, or a Congress that levies a war that future Congresses are prohibited from stopping. Notice how the entrenched provisions make a mockery out of otherwise benign statutes. Even sunset clauses are in no way comparable to these mockeries, because sunset clauses actually give MORE consideration to future congresses by allowing them to reassess the consequences of a law passed earlier. They do not bind Congresses in the way entrenched statues do. For Posner to say that sunset clauses are the inverse of entrenchment and are thus highly comparable is like me saying that war is the other side of peace and they are thus highly comparable. There is a reason why sunset clauses (in and of themselves) have never prompted an iota of controversy whereas these entrenchments are causing massive outrage.

In Posner’s paper, he treats this issue as though he were a freshman in a late-night bull session, looking at it as a trivialy academic logic puzzle, like the question as to whether God can make a boulder so large He can’t carry it. I honestly got the impression that the man was eighteen years of age while reading it. The reality of course, is very different. Entrenchment may or may not be Constitutional in a purely technical sense (even on this scale, Posner’s arguments seem weak–the magic of self-reference, for example) but it is irrelevant to the greater issue, that being that such provisions are a gross violation of democratic principle. It is not a matter of senate rules and procedures either, because these procedures are binding for present senates as they are for future ones. If the Senate changes the rules under which it operates, it must abide by these rules in addition to future Senates, who are themselves free to change them. Entrenchment provisions such as these are not matters of procedure, but of substance. It comes down to the fact that 60 people are purporting to bind billions of present and future U.S. Americans to a bill that does not even enjoy popular support today. The arrogance of such a gesture is spectacular.

Quite frankly, any law that changes inhibits future majorities in this way has to be done in the form of a Constitutional amendment, for such things are Constitutional in purview. The Constitution provides that laws such as these are to be decided by simple majorities. If a law were to indicate otherwise, quite simply you could appeal to the text of the Constitution involving how laws are written, observe that it indicates that such issues are dealt with by simple majorities, and the entrenchment becomes unconstitutional, null, void, and illegitimate, in addition to the absurdity we all knew it was.

Simply, if Congress can require a 60% vote for future changes to legislation, then why not 61%, 62%, 63%, 99% or 100%. Whatever the justification, at what threshold would it cease to be valid?

And is there a difference between requiring a specific supermajority and stating that legislation could never, ever be changed?

The supermajority required by California’s 1976 Proposition 13 for school districts to approve bond measures has long been irksome to many who resent a previous generation thinking that “it knew better.”

As Prof. S. suggests, what is the logical difference between a legislature requiring a supermajority to change a law, and requiring an 80% or unanimous vote, or even stating that “no future Congress can ever amend or repeal any portion of this legislation”?

Proposition 13 was a constitutional amendment, not a statute. That’s why it was binding on future California legislatures.

The logical difference is that the supermajority rule isn’t a statute, it’s a rule of order. Congress can’t bind itself by statute. The argument that this bill is a change of procedure, not a change of rule, is absurd. Isn’t the procedure itself defined by a rule? If not, how is the procedure defined? How can you change the procedure prescribed by a rule without that being an implicit change of the rule?

I would further argue that since we are not playing Nomic, we can’t create rules that can’t be amended.

The Senate gets to waive the prohibition on changes to the rationing board with a 3/5 majority. But there’s no opportunity for the House to waive it.

“The really weird thing is how today’s federal pols, who have zero respect for the Constitution’s limits on their own powers, want future pols to respect their injunctions against them.”

What’s weird about it? Why should they have more respect for the future than the past?

My guess is that its the political manifestation of the cultural erosion of ties between generations that has been much noted over the past half-century. The argument has been made that said erosion was inaugurated by the implementation of Social “Security”. Perhaps fertile ground for EV’s quest for the intersection of Libertarian and Communitarian values.

As Prof. S. suggests, what is the logical difference between a legislature requiring a supermajority to change a law, and requiring an 80% or unanimous vote, or even stating that “no future Congress can ever amend or repeal any portion of this legislation”?

Everything Congress does affects future generations, for good or for ill. Imposing restrictions on its own procedures is not really distinctive.

Of course it is. “Affect” is not the same thing as “direct.” Today’s pols can run up a huge debt, but they can’t force future pols to pay it off. Options include 1. simple reneging, and 2. devaluing the dollar. Today’s pols can send troops to Afghanistan, but they can’t force future pols to keep the troops there. Etc. The really weird thing is how today’s federal pols, who have zero respect for the Constitution’s limits on their own powers, want future pols to respect their injunctions against them.

What if Congress were to, for example, give the IRS the power to recommend new income tax rates, and if Congress did not disapprove those by a specified super majority (like 3/5), those new tax rates would become effective?

This is very similar to the LIV that has been ruled unconstitutional as well. As a agency of the Executive has the ability to modify appropriations, and the only way Congress can override is with a super-majority.

Congress routinely passes largely “conceptual” legislation, for which bureaucrats will detail the enabling, legally binding, regulations — i.e. effectively making law. In the Stimulus Package, the Cap and Trade bill, and in Healthcare legislation, Congress grants extraordinary rule making authorities to Cabinet Secretaries and Executive Branch agencies. It gives the term “shadow government” new meaning.

That’s why the Democrats will gut their own bill to get it passed. All they really need to do is to set up the basic infrastructure upon which a regulatory edifice can be built incrementally after passage. That’s one of Henry Waxman’s special skills.

Taxes originating in the Executive branch would likely be a special case. It seems to me that one of the central questions here, though, is whether so called “fines” constitute a discrete, permissible, form of taking — perhaps even because they don’t automatically apply across the board, but rather in response to individual lapses?

The linked article’s dismissal of the analogy-to-Constitutional-amendments argument (Section I.D.3.) isn’t entirely convincing to me. Yes, it’s true that, as the article argues, Constitutional amendments can expand government power, and override conflicting independent provisions, neither of which entrenched legislation can do.

But many amendments, particularly in the Bill of Rights, have precisely the form of entrenchment: the First Amendment simply restricts what kinds of legislation future Congresses may pass, by entrenching a provision that “Congress shall make no law” that meets certain criteria. Is the article really arguing that the First Amendment (and other parts of the Bill of Rights, perhaps) could’ve been passed as a piece of ordinary but entrenched legislation, and that passing it that way would have (or ought to have had) the same effect?

What you are missing is that while a constitution can bind the legislature (US rule) in ordinary legislation it cannot prevent a future constitutional change. The 1st amendment is a poor example, it clearly applies only to Congress passing laws, but the 2nd amendment does not have a specific limit on the actor, are we thus to consider that the only way to get rid of the right to bear arms is to overthrow the government entirely instead of merely holding a constitutional convention?

The only constitutional restriction on future constitutional amendment writers is the limitation on the ability to amend the constitution with regards to senate representation – is the 17th Amendment actually legal since it moves the senators’ selection from the legislatures to the people? But that’s neither here nor there, and long ago it was reasoned that the peoples of the states were the actual sovereigns and the 17th amendment merely changed how the senators were selected without affecting their proportional by state voting power in the senate.

Cyrus: If the Republicans had any way to force a 2/3 vote for cloture, I see no reason why they wouldn’t have.

With the Republicans, simple incompetence is always possible.

The Senate’s presiding officer, under questioning from Sen. Demint, ruled that the provision to change the rule was a change in “procedure” instead:

DEMINT: and so the language you see in this bill that specifically refers to a change in a rule is not a rule change, it’s a procedure change?

THE PRESIDING OFFICER: that is correct.

That distinction sounds implausible to me, but I don’t know the Senate’s rules.

I think any Senate that tried to undo the new rule/procedure without a 2/3 vote would violate the Senate’s rules (not any law), but the majority party probably could get away with such a violation. If the Republicans had any way to force a 2/3 vote for cloture, I see no reason why they wouldn’t have.

“Before the Senate may vote to approve any bill, amendment or resolution modifying this statute, 101 senators must vote in favor of ending debate.”

At some point, if you control procedure, you can control everything.

This is very similar to the LIV that has been ruled unconstitutional as well. As a agency of the Executive has the ability to modify appropriations, and the only way Congress can override is with a super-majority.

Given that Congress can apparently write legislation that undoes historical events[1], it seems unlikely that a current Congress can even pretend to bind a future Congress.

I disagree. They can pretend all they want.

They would be venerated as the saviors of the Republic…?

1 – For example, the Saxby/Clinton “Fix”.

Sure it can serve an important interest, which is probably why it is used in this case.

The question though is whether that means is of mere persuasive power or whether it has teeth.

It’s sort of like our bill of rights. There may be majorities big enough to repeal one of them (the second being my favorite to eliminate), but people respect the body of the first ten amendments too much to tamper even with the ones they think are mistakes.

Paygo is a recent practical example. The law enforced congressional budget discipline for years. But it in end it was repealed by a simple (Republican) majority vote.