LEGISLATIVE ALERT
MichaelConnelly.Jigsy.com
It has happened once again. Important legislation
designed to protect the American people has gone
down to defeat despite the fact that it was
supported by a vast majority of the citizens in this
country and a clear majority of their elected
representatives in both houses of the U.S. Congress.
This time 45 members of the U.S. Senate, all
Democrats, were allowed to ignore the will of the
people and the Constitution and stop a bill that
would punish sanctuary cities that allowed thousands
of illegal aliens to roam their streets at will
including convicted criminals who prey on American
citizens.
This
was accomplished because of the filibuster rule in
the Senate that requires that 60 Senators must vote
for “cloture” in order for any piece of legislation
to come to the floor of the Senate for a final vote.
This rule was adopted by the Senate decades ago to
protect the rights of the minority party in the
Senate, but has now become a method for enforcing
gridlock and violating the Constitutional right of
the American people to be represented by their
elected members of Congress.
The
Constitution establishes the Congress made up a
House of Representatives and the Senate. Members of
both houses take an oath of office to protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States. That
very Constitution set up the Congress to pass
legislation by a majority vote in both houses. That
is the way that the members can effectively
represent the will of the people who elected them.
There is nothing in the Constitution that requires
or even allows the U.S. Senate to require that laws
be passed by a so called super majority.
The
60 vote rule in the Senate is just that, a Senate
rule and it can be changed or violated at will. When
the Democrats controlled the Senate and Harry Reid
was in charge he used the rule to keep legislation
from being voted on that had been passed by the
House of Representatives, but he did not hesitate to
use the “nuclear option” to get Obama’s
ultra-liberal judicial and other appointees approved
by a simple majority vote in Senate.
However, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of a
Republican controlled Senate is not willing to do
the same thing, even when critical votes on issues
like defunding Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities,
the military budget, and especially the Iran treaty
are being blocked by a minority. In the case of the
Iran treaty the Republican leadership in both houses
betrayed the American people by allowing the treaty
to not be brought before the Senate for the
Constitutionally required ratification by a two
thirds majority. They also decided to ignore Article
1, Section 7 of the Constitution by allowing Obama
to submit the treaty for an up or down vote of the
Congress and then allow Obama to veto a negative
vote. This is unprecedented and extremely dangerous.
It
is time for us to stand up to the people we elected
to represent us in Congress and demand they actually
fulfill their oath of office. The Senate needs to
pass a rule change that allows legislation to be
passed by a simple majority of the Senate. That is
what our founding fathers envisioned when they
adopted the Constitution.
The
response of some Senators will be that it doesn’t
matter if they do this, because Obama will just veto
any laws he doesn’t like and there will not be the
votes to override it. That doesn’t matter! What does
matter is that Republicans will be doing what their
constituents elected them to do. They will be
protecting and defending the Constitution and force
the Democrat Senators to actually go on record with
votes, not hide behind the archaic cloture rule.
We
must demand that the original intent of the
Constitution be followed, and we should remind them
that the American people also have a “nuclear
option” available. It is contained in the
Declaration of Independence which states that when a
government becomes abusive of it power and the
rights of the governed “it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish it,” Unless things change
soon I believe that more and more Americans are
going to be considering this option.
mrobertc@hotmail.com
Michael Connelly blog
www.usjf.net
Constitutional Law Alliance