Open letter to Congressman Blumenauer: Where does your legislative authority come from?
March 22, 2010 by Statesman Sentinel · Leave a Comment
November 24, 2009
Dear Congressman Blumenauer,
Your recent vote in favor of H. R. 3262: Affordable Health Care for America Act has raised some significant concerns for me and many other constituents of Oregon and these United States. Our concerns are numerous but the most important of them to me is the question of the federal government’s constitutional authority to manage the health-care industry in any manner whatever.
Article 1, section 8 of our Constitution plainly enumerates the powers granted to Congress by the States. Managing our health-care system is not among those enumerated powers, nor is this power granted anywhere else in the Constitution. Furthermore, the 10th amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So it is quite clear that Congress has no authority to involve itself in these matters and, I might add, many other areas in which it intervenes regularly with no legal authority.
As you know, the federal government was created by a compact between the States, contracted by the U.S. Constitution, and all of its granted powers are derived solely therefrom. If our government is not constrained by the authority granted by our Constitution, it has become lawless, arbitrary, and therefore, illegitimate, as it has lost all connection with its source of authority and is unfit to serve a free people. I hope that since this issue has been brought to your attention, you and your colleagues will do everything in your power to constrain the federal government by the terms the States agreed to at this country’s founding.
So, Congressman Blumenauer, will you and your colleagues continue legislating by fiat with disregard for the Supreme Law of the land or, will you honor your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States by doing everything in your power to end federal involvement in the health care industry and return this responsibility to the States and the people, where it rightfully belongs? And if you believe that Congress should have a role in providing health-care to Americans, would you consider initiating a constitutional amendment so that at least you would be governing in a lawful manner with full authority granted to Congress by the States?
I urge you and your colleagues to remember what your responsibility is to your country – which is to protect liberty – and bring federal power back under the constraints of constitutional government, for without the guidance of the Rule of Law, essential liberty will surely perish.
Sincerely,
Stephen Otto
Portland, Oregon
