[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 25, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2636-H2642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
                           OUR FIRST FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. DeSantis). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is an important day right across the 
street at the U.S. Supreme Court Building. It has been interesting. In 
the past, most of the time that I am aware of, when there was a matter 
coming before the Supreme Court, they observed what is called 
reciprocity, just as if a U.S. Senator wants to come down here and 
observe--they can't speak on the floor--but they can come to the House 
floor. In the same way, we have reciprocity with the Senate. We can go 
down to the Senate and stand in the Chamber and be there in person, as 
I have done when Rand Paul was doing what amounted to a filibuster and 
when Ted Cruz was doing what amounted to a filibuster.
  With the Supreme Court, normally, if there are Members of Congress 
that are going to be coming, they will reserve a bench. There have been 
a couple of times that the bench was full and other Members of Congress 
filled those spaces before I got there; but it has been an observation 
that, since this body is charged with funding the Supreme Court and 
providing what they need and determining what they don't really need, 
it is part of reciprocity that they provide those places to observe 
what is happening.
  I have been rather ambivalent. I can see both sides of the issues of 
cameras in the courtroom, because as a judge, murder trials, other 
things of interest, networks would want to come film. I had one case 
that went for 10 weeks. We have very strict rules. We only allow one 
camera in the courtroom. It could never be worked on during anything 
that was going on, and it could never be a distraction at all. But I 
saw how cameras could work in the courtroom without being any problem 
at all.
  Here in Congress, I have fairly much taken the position that if a 
camera is going to be in the courtroom, leave it up to the courts. But 
with the United States Supreme Court, as I have seen this week, there 
would be no harm in having a camera somewhere in the courtroom where 
people didn't notice so that Americans could see--since we moved the 
Supreme Court toward being an oligarchy--we could see what they are 
doing, whether they are sleeping, whether they are participating, or 
whether they are asking stupid questions.
  I went over, and since I am sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court 
Bar, I was allowed to be in the overflow room and hear what was going 
on; so it was kind of difficult to really tell who was addressing what 
during the case that the Supreme Court was hearing this morning that I 
heard oral arguments on. This is an extremely critical case, and I 
couldn't tell which judge asked the questions, but when the Supreme 
Court is, in effect, expressing concern through their questions that a 
corporation, a for-profit corporation, could not possibly have firmly 
held religious beliefs, then it occurred to me, for Heaven's sake, this 
Justice Department doesn't seem to have a problem indicting 
corporations. So, if the Justice Department can indict a corporation 
and say they have an intent to violate the law, well, if that 
corporation can have intent with regard to violations of the law, it 
certainly ought to be able to form the intent to have firmly held 
religious beliefs.
  It was shocking as I listened to questions from some of the Supreme 
Court Justices today, when that is compared with the history of the 
United States of America and Roger Williams, for example, whose statue 
has been moved last week, but how he formed Rhode Island because of his 
firmly held religious beliefs and his beliefs that there should be 
freedom of religion in America where the government does not interfere 
in any way.
  You compare the beliefs of the Pilgrims who came from Holland to 
England and then here--they wanted religious freedom so they could 
serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;

[[Page H2637]]

they could follow their Christian beliefs without being persecuted or 
without having a government say that you don't have any right to 
practice those beliefs--compared with the Supreme Court Justices, in 
effect, saying, gee, they could just pay the fine and it would be a lot 
cheaper than $475 million in penalties they will have to pay. Actually, 
one Justice had the nerve to say: I believe that was called a tax and 
not a penalty.
  Paul Clement was doing a great job. My immediate thought was, well, 
no, the Supreme Court at page 15 of the majority opinion said that 
clearly the mandate was a penalty. Congress called it a penalty. It 
clearly was a penalty. It is only assessed if you don't do what the 
bill requires people to do, so clearly it is a penalty. And since it is 
a penalty, they said at page 15, then we do have jurisdiction to go 
forward because, the Supreme Court pointed out, if that mandate were a 
tax, then under the anti-injunction statute, the Supreme Court would 
not have jurisdiction to have proceeded when they did and the 
plaintiffs that brought the case would not have had standing to bring 
the case. But they said, since this is clearly a penalty and not a tax, 
then we can go forward, because if it is a tax, then the Anti-
Injunction Act kicks in, and we don't have jurisdiction at this time.
  But on page 15, the Supreme Court called it a penalty. And they, in 
that opinion, apparently to the ignorance of at least one of our 
Supreme Court Justices, the Supreme Court called it a penalty at page 
15, because they quoted the Congress calling it a penalty in ObamaCare, 
and they said, clearly, it is a penalty. We have got jurisdiction, and 
we will go ahead and determine the rest of the case.
  Then you go over about 40 pages, and then they determine, okay, now 
that we are hearing this because it is a penalty and not a tax, we 
determine it is a tax and therefore it is constitutional.
  We know under the rules of this House that Supreme Court judges would 
not do anything inappropriate, but, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that 
opinion was indecent. It was a travesty. It was hypocritical, that 
decision was. How you can call it a penalty at page 15 and then, with a 
straight face, 40 pages later, say now it is a tax so it is a 
constitutional, and then sit as they were today and have a Justice say, 
kind of snidely: Well, we didn't call it a penalty. I mean it was 
called a tax. It depends on where you look in the majority opinion as 
to whether it is a penalty or a tax, but Congress clearly called it a 
penalty.
  I am very concerned. We had someone who was in a position with the 
executive branch when ObamaCare was put together and pushed here in 
Congress, and in her position with the executive branch, at that time, 
she had to either be incompetent and failed to give the executive 
branch any advice on its most important bill that they took up or there 
was a lie told that no advice was ever given about this bill. Either 
way, that Justice should not have been allowed to hear this case as a 
member of the Supreme Court because, clearly--and I think the questions 
that were apparently asked by her today show--she was an advocate, is 
an advocate now and most likely was an advocate then in this 
administration.
  So this country is in trouble.
  I yield to my dear friend from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) for any 
comments she might have.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for 
allowing me to participate in this discussion, because this really is 
the issue of our day.

  People on a political level are talking about ObamaCare and how 
ObamaCare is destroying our economy. It is hurting job prospects, and 
it is not allowing us to move into the robust growth we would be in 
without ObamaCare. But it is even more fundamental; and I think the 
gentleman from Texas, as a judge and as a lawyer, has been laying out, 
really, his broken heart over what he observed today at the Supreme 
Court.
  I share that same level of heartbrokenness because this really is the 
whole game. This is the whole ball of wax. Because if you look at what 
America was founded upon and why we were founded in the first place, it 
was so that we could be a free land made up of free people who are 
allowed to exercise our own moral conscience--and not just in the realm 
of belief, freedom of belief, but also freedom of speech and freedom of 
expression. But even one step further, it is the exercise of our 
religious liberties.
  There was a case that the gentleman from Texas would remember. It was 
during the Vietnam war era. It was called Tinker v. Des Moines, and the 
very famous holding out of that Supreme Court decision was this: 
students did not have to check their constitutional rights at the 
schoolhouse door. Today, the Supreme Court is taking up this question: 
Will the American employer and will the American employee have to check 
their religious liberties at their church door so they can only 
exercise their religious faith within the confines of their religious 
house of worship or maybe even so far as in their home, but certainly, 
according to the Obama administration, not in the workplace?
  Think about it for a moment. The author of the Constitution of the 
United States, James Madison, and the other Founders specifically wrote 
the Constitution and, in particular, the First Amendment to the 
Constitution to guarantee that it wasn't just behind closed doors in 
our church or behind the confines of our home that we would be entitled 
to religious liberty of freedom of belief and freedom of expression and 
walking out our faith, because isn't that what most churches and 
synagogues and mosques advocate during the time of worship, that we 
live our faith, that we don't have a dead faith but an alive faith that 
we practice?
  This is really the key, and this is the issue. We are here in the 
most lively place on the planet for speech--the House of 
Representatives. Representative Gohmert is standing in the well. There 
is no other piece of real estate on this Earth that allows for greater 
freedom of speech and expression than right here. In fact, we are 
protected by law. We can't be arrested while we are coming here to cast 
a vote. We can't be dragged off to a court because of the speech that 
we enjoy here on this House floor.
  Just merely steps from here, if you pass through Statuary Hall and 
into the rotunda--Representative Gohmert has given probably more tours 
of this building than any other Members of Congress, and I know when he 
gives that tour he points to one of the seminal paintings that hangs in 
the rotunda. That painting is called the ``Embarkation of the 
Pilgrims,'' and it shows our ancestors, the Pilgrims, as they bowed on 
their knees before a holy God, the Bible in front of them on their lap 
turned to the New Testament. And on the sail of the ship it says, ``God 
with us,'' hanging in the rotunda just in yonder Hall.
  The Pilgrims left their surroundings not because they didn't like 
England and not because they didn't like Holland. They came to the 
United States because their religious liberties were being infringed 
upon. They weren't allowed to believe and act on their belief in such a 
way where they truly felt free.

                              {time}  1530

  So they came to the United States of America. That was in 1620 when 
the Pilgrims first came, and it wasn't until later in 1776 when the 
Declaration of Independence was passed, and then later in 1789, I 
believe, or '87 when the Constitution of the United States was passed, 
but the author of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote, and I just 
the week before last saw the First Amendment to the Constitution. It 
was written in James Madison's hand. I bent over and read in that 
beautiful calligraphy script, and James Madison scratched out the 
original words that he was going to put in the First Amendment. It was 
full toleration of religious expression, meaning we tolerate your 
belief. Instead, what he wrote in was ``free exercise.''
  So that not only was our government saying that it is nonnegotiable, 
there is no negotiating away these rights. These were fundamental 
rights every American enjoyed just because we are Americans--freedom of 
religious belief and freedom of free exercise, expression of those 
beliefs.
  That is what is on trial today before the Supreme Court. It should 
have never gotten there because our liberties shouldn't be up for sale. 
That is

[[Page H2638]]

part of the problem. We believe there should be equal treatment under 
the law for every American--Black, White, whether or not you are male, 
female, poor, rich--everybody should be treated equally under the law. 
Is that true under ObamaCare? According to the Becket Fund, they say 
over 100 million Americans who are politically connected to this 
administration are exempted or waived from some of the requirements 
under the Affordable Care Act. But Americans who have religious 
objections to providing drugs or devices that would take the life of 
innocent Americans, they are being denied the exercise of their 
religious liberties.
  So just think of that: over 100 million people, whether they belong 
to a union or maybe they work for a university, but somehow they are 
politically connected to this President and this administration, they 
are waived, but the people who aren't politically connected, they have 
a different kind of justice that they have to come under. That is 
wrong, and that denies equal treatment under the law.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I would say to the gentlelady, I was not aware of the 
line that was scratched out by James Madison, but obviously if he 
scratched out ``tolerate'' and added in ``free exercise,'' it was 
intended to be more than just tolerant. This was a bedrock principle. I 
know the gentlelady, I doubt there is anybody else in all of Congress 
or even the Senate that has a master's in tax law, as the gentlelady 
from Minnesota does, but I know we have both heard during our 
professional lives that the power to tax is the power to destroy.
  I don't have the exact words, and I haven't seen the transcript or 
heard any replay since I was at the Supreme Court building this 
morning, but to hear a Supreme Court Justice of this country say to the 
litigants' attorney, in essence:

       Why don't you just pay the tax, the penalty, and then you 
     can have your religious beliefs?

  Staggering.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Could we talk about that?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentlelady. I doubt you were aware that 
in essence that question was asked:
  Why don't you just pay that tax?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Let's talk about the reality as an employer and an 
employee of how egregious this tax is.
  The employers that were in front of the Supreme Court today, and 
there were two employers before the Supreme Court today, they could pay 
the tax. They could do that, and then enjoy their religious liberty. 
This is what the tax is: it is over $36,000 per employee per year. So 
we are talking about a company that has 16,000 employees. They offer a 
very generous health care package. The employer wants to provide health 
insurance for their employees. In fact, they already offer 16 different 
contraceptives. They just don't believe, because it violates their 
moral belief, that they should supply four different contraceptives 
because it takes the life of a innocent human being. So they fully pay 
for health insurance, but if this employer decided they didn't want to 
offer health insurance, then they would pay the government a $2,000 
fine per person. So they can either choose to offer health insurance 
and pay over $36,000 a year, which would effectively shut the company 
down. They would have to go out of business.
  Mr. GOHMERT. And apparently it is phenomenal insurance. The employees 
love it.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Yes, it is very, very high, wonderful insurance that 
they already offer. Or they offer no insurance and they pay the 
government a $2,000 fine, and the employees don't get any health care, 
by the way. Or they can choose to violate their moral conscience. Or 
they can just close their doors and go out of business. This is freedom 
under the Obama administration? This is freedom for the American 
people?
  I think the gentleman would agree that the supreme irony of all of 
this is that we have a President today who under article II is given 
executive power, and he has made a decision apparently that he is going 
also to arrogate to himself the power that is given to Congress under 
article I, which is to make the laws, because this President is 
currently making his own law, even as we speak every day. But it is 
also arrogating to himself the powers of article III of the judicial 
system when he and our Attorney General said they don't agree that the 
Defense of Marriage Act is a constitutional law, so they are not going 
to uphold it, in violation of article II, which says the President must 
faithfully execute the laws of the land.
  So we have a President who, ironically, is taking power that wasn't 
granted to him, and by this law today he is taking away fundamental 
guaranteed rights from the American people. The President is giving 
himself power unconstitutionally, but he is taking away from the 
American people power that belongs to them.
  That to me is a part of gangster government. We talked about gangster 
government early on when the President issued 3,400 pink slips to 
automobile dealerships all across America. He shut them down virtually 
overnight because he said so. Now we have a President who is giving a 
pink slip to anybody who wants to exercise their religious liberty 
rights.
  We are here to say, Mr. Speaker, to the President of the United 
States--I hope he is listening--that our First Amendment rights, our 
Second Amendment rights, all of our rights are nonnegotiable because 
they are guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. That is 
why this matters, and that is why the gentleman from Texas is dead-on 
today to talk about this issue because this is it. If we lose political 
speech and expression and religious liberty, it is game over for the 
American people. It is game over.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I would like to ask the gentlelady a question, knowing 
our American history as well as you do: Can you imagine if King George 
had sent a decree that said pay a $2,000 penalty or tax and then you 
can observe your religious beliefs, what would the gentlelady think 
would be the response of Patrick Henry, John Adams, James Madison, 
Thomas Payne, and all of those people? Thomas Payne was not a very 
religious man, but he was big on rights.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. We know exactly what they would say. Patrick Henry 
said:

       Give me liberty or give me death.

  They were willing to put their lives, their honor, their sacred 
fortune on the line to fight for exactly what the Obama administration 
has been eager to deny to the American people, which is political 
speech and expression, and also religious liberty. We know that is what 
they would do.
  They would do far more than dump some boxes of tea into Boston Harbor 
in one of the first tea parties there is. If they thought the Tea Party 
was strong now, you ain't seen nothing yet, because we are going to see 
the American people rise up in force. They are unwilling to put duct 
tape willingly over their mouths. They are unwilling to put duct tape 
over their moral conscience. They are unwillingly to put duct tape over 
their hearts, to have a heart for God.
  People will stand for freedom. It is written in our DNA as Americans. 
It is what we do for a living. We get up in the morning and we fight 
for liberty. It is who we are. The Obama administration can pass an 
unconstitutional bill, which ObamaCare is, but the American people 
won't stand for it. That is why we are here today in this Chamber, 
where we still retain free speech, to hopefully continue to give free 
speech and religious liberty to every American so they don't have to 
check their religious liberty at the doors of their church or their 
synagogue or their home.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If it came down to this, the Federal Government, of 
course using the IRS under ObamaCare to enforce the law, the Federal 
Government comes and says, the gentlelady from Minnesota must either 
pay a $2,000 fine, penalty, tax, whatever they may wish to call it 
today, or you cannot observe your religious beliefs, what would the 
gentlelady's reaction be?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Fundamentally what they are doing in this legislation, 
and apparently the question that the Supreme Court Justice asked today, 
that is what the Justice was saying. That is that you pay a fine of 
over $36,000 a year per employee, and then that is the price for 
exercising your religious liberty. So you can have religious liberty, 
but it is at a very steep price. Since when did it become for sale? 
That is the issue. That is what is

[[Page H2639]]

unconstitutional about this bill. No one has to pay for speech. Are we 
going to start charging the printing presses? What about local TV? What 
about bloggers and what about all of the mainstream media, usually 
called ``Team Obama.'' What if they have to start paying for the 
privilege of being able to publish? Then where would they be in their 
defense of the administration?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, it is going to be interesting, and this is a bit 
of a tangent, but because of what the gentlelady has pointed out, this 
President has indicated he is going to turn over control of the 
Internet away from where it is now to an international confab that has 
been champing at the bit to have a chance to control the Internet. They 
have been hoping desperately that some day they would have something 
that everybody wanted to use so they could begin taxing it, charging 
fees to use the Internet. And once they could do that, then the 
international entity, like the U.N., wouldn't have to go begging to the 
different countries that make up its membership. They could require 
taxes and penalties to be paid in order to publish on the Internet, in 
order to send an email on the Internet. You could rack up taxes, and 
then they will be a permanent entity from now on once we give control 
of the Internet over to an international group that will have authority 
to tax those who want to publish online.
  So we are talking about the disaster that ObamaCare is, but that is 
where it is going.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. The gentleman is exactly right because if you have an 
international body, whether it is the U.N. or some other international 
body--we know that the largest bloc in the U.N. is the OIC, the 
Organization of Islamic Cooperation. And the number one agenda item of 
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is to criminalize speech, any 
speech that they consider as an insult to their prophet.
  So we would see across the world again a silencing of freedom of 
speech and expression dictated in all likelihood by this large bloc at 
the U.N., which takes us back to religious liberty here in the United 
States.
  As the gentleman asked in his original question, what about this idea 
of the government being able to tax us for religious speech? I believe 
that if we lose this case, this will set the precedent that the 
government will then be able to dictate and decide any practice that 
touches our religious belief.
  So, for instance, if you are in a doctor's office or if you are in a 
counselor's office or a therapist's office, the government could 
conceivably then dictate to the therapist what the therapist can say or 
not say in that office; or likewise, a doctor, what they can say or not 
say.

                              {time}  1545

  Let's remember, again, what this is. This isn't a company imposing 
its beliefs on employees because employees are free to buy whatever 
they want to buy in health care.
  This is the government. This is government censorship. This is our 
government forcing government's politically correct beliefs and 
religious ideas down the throats of every American--every American 
company, every American employer, every American employee.
  Do we see where this is leading? It is here right now. It is 
government-enforced coerced speech. I want to say that again. This is 
government-enforced coerced speech--speech and religious practice.
  Now, the Federal Government is going to have the power to force you 
and me and everyone listening to us today, the government gets to 
choose, the government gets to decide what our speech is, what our 
religious expression is. That is not America.
  You see, that is it. That is the entire game right there. That is why 
I say it is game over if we lose on this issue. That is how central and 
important the issue is that the gentleman from Texas is bringing up 
today.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I just can't avoid thinking in these terms the 
conclusion when, ultimately, you follow the logic of at least one of 
the Supreme Court justices.
  In essence, what is being implied by the question is if you want to 
avoid paying to kill a child in the womb, then just pay the tax, and we 
will allow you to observe your conscience, your firmly held religious 
beliefs.
  It is staggering that anybody, any justice on the United States 
Supreme Court, would have rationalized to the point that--could ever 
even dream of saying: just pay the fine penalty tax, and then you don't 
have to pay for killing children in utero.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. The gentleman is absolutely correct because in that 
statement lies the premise. The premise that the justice is embracing 
is that you don't have a guaranteed right to religious expression and 
to religious thought; you don't have that right. That is our right. We 
will sell it. The only question at this point is how much and can you 
afford it.
  Now, for people who are poor people, will the government be 
subsidizing them so that they can buy their indulgence from the 
government?
  Is that what it will be? We have to buy indulgences from the 
government now?
  Mr. GOHMERT. It is protection.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Protection money.
  Mr. GOHMERT. From the government.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That is why I call it a gangster government. It is a 
gangster government when you have to buy protection from your own 
government. In this instance, it is over $36,000 per year, per 
employee.
  In fact, the fine is in excess of what the wage is for some of the 
employees that are being provided full generous health insurance.
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentlelady brought up something that I don't recall 
being mentioned during the entire argument. Hobby Lobby, because of 
their Christian beliefs, not only wants to provide compensation, they 
want to provide an excellent health care policy.
  What I don't believe was brought up in the entire oral argument was 
that the employees can buy supplemental insurance to cover those four 
drugs that will kill children in utero, and nothing is denying them 
that opportunity.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. And can I tell you at what price?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Certainly.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. This is how inexpensive it is. This doesn't deny any 
employee to go out and purchase a drug that would kill their child in 
the womb.
  You can purchase it at one retailer for $4 a month and another 
retailer--all of these retailers are widely available across the United 
States--for $9 a month, so this is well within the grasp of any 
employee.
  The one employer from Oklahoma that you mentioned pays a starting 
wage of over $14 an hour. There is a lot of Americans listening right 
now who would love to have a job at $14 an hour--in fact, I think it is 
$14.61 per hour, I think that is their starting wage--plus very 
generous health insurance benefits.
  So why in the world would the Obama administration deny to 16,000 
employees scattered across the United States potentially their job, 
their livelihood? It is either you agree with our administration's view 
of religion and morality or you forfeit your company.
  This is a pretty big deal. This is about as big as it gets. This to 
me shows a stunning arrogance of power by the Obama administration, 
that they would force people to give up and yield their religious 
liberty and freedom of expression rights or pay for that right.
  Mr. GOHMERT. One of the justices--and, again, since we don't have 
cameras in the courtroom yet, I will be fighting for that in the 
future, I could only listen to the audio--but one of the justices, 
again, tried to belittle Paul Clement's comment that they have a 
choice.
  The gentlelady has pointed out accurately that you can pay $2,000 or 
$36,500; but he was indicating that, when you add up, with all the 
employees they have, the total cost, they either pay $475 million, or 
they can drop the insurance, leave the employees in a real dilemma to 
have to go buy ObamaCare insurance that, other than those four 
contraceptives that bring about abortion, they provide them far better 
insurance than what ObamaCare requires.
  So when he said it is either $475 million or $26 million, she was 
insisting that you could just pay the $2,000 fine and was virtually in 
unbelief that it actually amounted to $26 million when

[[Page H2640]]

you add up all the people they would have to pay for.
  So that was his position before the Supreme Court: to follow our 
religious beliefs, we either pay $475 million or we pay $26 million.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. In fines, in fines to the government, and nobody gives 
anything. In fact, you give up the health insurance you have today. 
That is why people are so upset, and rightly so, across the country 
because more people have lost health insurance, we are told, than have 
gained health insurance under ObamaCare.
  Again, all across my district--I am sure you have the same stories, 
it breaks your heart--people whose deductibles quadrupled, people whose 
premiums quadrupled if they still have insurance. This is real.
  Then you have got the spectre, as the Becket Fund said, of over 100 
million Americans who are politically well connected enough to this 
administration under what I call gangster government that they were 
able to be waived out of the ObamaCare requirements.
  Does that mean that they get to exercise their religious liberties, 
but if you are a business that has, what, Christian-held beliefs, then 
you are going to lose those beliefs?
  This is insanity. We have to have freedom in this country, and we 
have to have equal application of justice under the law. That is who we 
are. It is a good thing. It is what builds us up. That is worth 
fighting for.
  Mr. GOHMERT. That is who we have been. The question now before the 
Supreme Court is: Is that who we will continue to be?
  We know that at least one justice of the Supreme Court seems to think 
that it is okay for the government to tax you $2,000. Just pay the tax, 
and then you can observe your religious beliefs, even though it keeps 
you from providing the great health care that you have been providing.

  I will tell you that this is a seminal point in our history. 
ObamaCare, that decision broke my heart because I thought so much of 
Chief Justice John Roberts. Then when you read the decision, the 
decision is so poorly written, so pitifully reasoned, so hypocritical 
within the decision itself.
  Yes, it is a penalty, so we have got jurisdiction, and now that we 
have got jurisdiction, it is a tax, so it is constitutional. I mean, it 
is totally at odds with itself.
  Now, we are to this place. Is a majority of the Supreme Court going 
to say: Pilgrims, Roger Williams, all of you that brought us to the 
place where the freest, most successful country in the history of the 
world, those freedoms that you saw, that you prayed for, they are going 
away because now, since the government has the power to tax, it will 
have the power to destroy your religions?
  As the gentlelady points out, why stop with $2,000? Once the Supreme 
Court says this government has the power to tax you to observe your 
religious beliefs, why not $10,000, why not $20,000, why not $50,000?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Well, remember that the tax to express your religious 
beliefs is $36,500 per employee. The tax is $2,000 per employee if you 
decide you are not going to purchase health insurance, so it is 
extremely expensive.
  I think the gentleman is raising an excellent point because to where 
do the people of this country repair? If we have a President who many 
believe is no longer following the Constitution of the United States 
under article II with the limitations of power or if we look at the 
Supreme Court and the Supreme Court justices themselves are not 
rendering opinions that are within the Constitution of the United 
States, what do the people do?
  The Constitution provides for impeachment for justices. There is 
impeachment provided for the President of the United States. That is an 
option, but those are options of last resort.
  I think what we are trying to do is appeal to the justices, to think 
of the people, think of the oath they took to the Constitution. Don't 
consider that, every time you meet in the Supreme Court, that you are 
in a new open constitutional convention.
  It isn't a constitutional convention where the justices have a free 
pen and a phone, so to speak, and can rewrite the Constitution.
  We are appealing to the justices to limit themselves under the 
Constitution and observe that the First Amendment has been ironclad 
since James Madison wrote it.
  We are here on this floor today saying we stand with James Madison, 
we stand with the people of this country, and we are not, for one 
moment, going to allow anyone to attack any American's religious 
liberties and freedoms.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, chains can be figuratively applied--figuratively 
applied when someone taxes because a tax hung around the neck is a 
burden. It is a chain. It is an albatross. It can be devastating, as 
some people have found out.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. GOHMERT. Going back to this morning, as I mentioned, I am a 
member admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. It is a great 
honor, back when I was a real lawyer. There is seating in front of the 
bar for the members of the Supreme Court Bar, so those were full. So 
there is an overflow room where we listened to the audio but obviously 
don't get to see what is going on.
  I was just listening to the argument, the oral argument audibly, 
without the benefit of being able to see which Justice asked which 
question. I don't know that I will be able to forget the premise of an 
educated Supreme Court Justice, almost rhetorically, asking: Why don't 
you just pay the $2,000? She didn't say this, but pay the $2,000 so you 
can practice your firmly held religious beliefs. That is what her 
question amounted to.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Did she say the $2,000 or $36,500?
  Mr. GOHMERT. She pointed out the $2,000.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. What she was saying is: Don't provide health insurance 
for your employees. Just push your employees out in the cold. They can 
sit on the curb. They won't have employer-sponsored insurance--which, 
by the way, has zero tax consequence to the employee. They have no tax 
consequences.
  Under ObamaCare, every American is forced to buy a product whether 
they want it or not, even if they can't necessarily afford it. So then 
people now under ObamaCare have to go buy a product that the government 
dictates to them they have to buy at a price that the government 
dictates that they have to pay. So either they get health insurance 
with no tax consequence or they have to buy their health insurance with 
after-tax income, money that they have already paid taxes on. Now they 
are going to get double-hurt under ObamaCare.
  So, what the President wins, the American people lose. That is our 
choice. The President wins; the American people lose--financially, 
freedom, most importantly in this case, religious liberty, and that is 
not acceptable under our constitutional guarantee of liberty.
  I don't care who it is, because the Magna Carta taught King John at 
Runnymede that no man is above the law, especially the King, because 
that is who you have to worry about. It is no different in the United 
States of America. No man is to be above the law, including the 
President of the United States. He can't just change a law with the 
stroke of a pen or with a telephone call. He's not allowed to under our 
system of justice, but he also is not within his power to deny anyone 
their religious liberty rights.
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentlewoman makes a great point. But unfortunately 
or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the Founders created 
so much in the way of checks and balances to prevent the government 
from abusing the power, as the gentlewoman points out.
  If the Congress will not protect its own powers, as we have not, the 
Senate has been very protective of the President's executive orders 
that usurped our power. They have gladly handed over power.
  I was shocked to hear in this very room, as the President spoke from 
this podium, a standing ovation from most of the people on this side of 
the aisle when the President, in effect, said: If you don't change the 
law, I will. And they stand and applaud a President who says, in 
effect: I am going to usurp even more of the legislative power given to 
Congress under article 1 than I have already taken.
  It is staggering to hear that applauded. It is also staggering to me 
to

[[Page H2641]]

see the Senate has a body, in effect, protecting the President's 
usurpation of our power. That is one check, one balance.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I was here in the Chamber with the gentleman. I saw 
and observed exactly what you said, that our colleagues across the 
aisle stood up and applauded. That is a constitutional crisis. As we 
are having this discussion today, we are in the midst of a 
constitutional crisis with a President who is aggregating to himself 
powers that are not constitutionally his. He is rendering also, taking 
away and denying constitutional liberties to the American people in 
terms of freedom of speech, expression, and religious liberty.
  It is interesting, too, with all due respect to our colleagues across 
the aisle, they are applauding becoming dinosaurs when the President of 
the United States decides that he will also be Congress and he will 
also write the laws.
  Thank you very much. I don't need your help. I am going to do what I 
want to do.
  Why in the world would any Member of this body who has an election 
certificate applaud that now they get to become a dinosaur? Now they 
are no longer relevant. We might as well dispense with the cost of 
elections altogether and go home and revert to what King George III 
wanted in the first place, which is a total and complete and absolute 
government with one person calling all the shots. That isn't our form 
of government.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I was shocked that one of the Justices asked the 
question, basically: How can or does a corporation exercise religious 
freedom?
  You know, this Justice knows that the Justice Department has indicted 
corporations charging criminal intent, intent to violate the law, and 
yet she cannot figure out how a corporation could have intent to 
violate the law but could not have intent to have religiously held 
beliefs. That was a bit staggering to me to hear that question: How can 
a corporation exercise religious beliefs?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. She also fails to understand that the Federal 
Government again is practicing censorship and that the Federal 
Government is the one forcing its vision of morality and religious 
belief on every American. Again, that is government-enforced coercive 
speech and morality and religious expression. That is also contained in 
that remarkable premise of the Supreme Court Justice.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, it is remarkable. Again, the Justice, if I heard 
her correctly, just advocated, well, just drop the insurance. Drop the 
insurance. This company is providing great insurance, as the 
gentlewoman pointed out, and her point was not made because time is so 
limited. I know Paul Clement knows, but that is such a huge benefit to 
the employee.
  There was discussion by the Supreme Court about benefits to the 
employee. Well, gee, you can raise their salaries and make up the 
difference, when actually you may have to raise that salary an extra 
third in order to cover the cost that is pretax to the employee. So the 
employee is getting hammered when they just, as this Justice appeared 
to callously advocate, just drop the insurance, pay the $2,000 tax 
penalty. Congress said ``penalty''; they said ``penalty'' and ``tax,'' 
take your pick. Either way, they were advocating harming the employee.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Sixteen thousand employees of one company.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Harming 16,000 employees as a way to deal with an 
unconstitutional act.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. By the way, isn't it true, if the gentleman recalls, 
that while this Supreme Court Justice was just advocating, in a 
flippant way, drop health insurance coverage for over 16,000 employees, 
doesn't that same Supreme Court Justice enjoy Federal employee health 
insurance? And isn't that same Supreme Court Justice protected from not 
going into ObamaCare?
  It seems to me that our President is not in ObamaCare nor are the 
Supreme Court Justices in ObamaCare. It seems to me that there is a 
shield of protection for them. It is good enough for the American 
people to suffer under ObamaCare, but I don't believe our President or 
the Supreme Court Justices have to be in ObamaCare.
  Mr. GOHMERT. That is my recollection. And some of us were pushing for 
and asking our leadership why don't we do an amendment that will make 
sure the Supreme Court has to be under ObamaCare. I really think that 
would have been the more appropriate thing to do. In fact, I still 
think it is the appropriate thing to do.
  It is hard to know, since Congress was not given a chance to see what 
the Supreme Court was doing and who was asking what questions, but it 
sure seems like since they feel so strongly about ObamaCare, that they 
really should have the chance to experience it firsthand and just find 
out how wonderful it is.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I would like to share my experience with it, because 
as Members of Congress we were forced to go into ObamaCare. The only 
exchange we were allowed to go in was the one here in Washington, D.C. 
It is called a small business link. The only small business is 
Congress, the government. We are the ones put in.
  Just for the record, my own individual premium increased for the same 
number of people in our family that we would have to cover. Our premium 
was scheduled to increase times four. So we would have had to increase 
our premium by four times, and our deductible was quadrupled. That also 
went up four times. So there was no Affordable Care Act in our family. 
It is an extremely unaffordable health insurance act.
  I would be curious to know if the Supreme Court Justices would 
voluntarily put themselves in ObamaCare so they, too, could know the 
pleasure of what it is to pay four times more for the same health 
insurance than my family paid last year.
  Mr. GOHMERT. One of the Justices appeared to point out, apparently, 
that an agency is the one that established so many of these things. So 
the question arises, since an agency can say your insurance policy must 
provide this medicine, this medicine, not this medicine, this medicine, 
have we given unelected bureaucrats the power to determine what your 
religious beliefs firmly held include? Because under ObamaCare, an 
agency says: Your religious rights must yield to our unelected 
bureaucratic decision that this medication must be included; therefore, 
your First Amendment rights yield to our unelected bureaucratic agency 
rights to decide what your religious rights have to include and what 
they don't.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That is exactly right. That is government-enforced 
coercion on religious belief. It varies at caprice and whim. That is 
one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American 
exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty 
for the American people. If you look at the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow 
morning that your religious liberties were intact. Now, apparently, 
today, the gentleman was in the Chamber and heard that, according to at 
least one Supreme Court Justice, in her opinion, they aren't so certain 
anymore.
  It is not only the election of the Court, but at the election of the 
unnamed bureaucrat who decides today we will have these killer drugs 
that we mandate. Tomorrow what drugs will they take off the list? Will 
I not get lifesaving drugs that I would need to get? Will I not get 
lifesaving treatments that I thought I was going get? Will the 
bureaucrats decide that only politically connected best friends of the 
administration get certain surgical procedures or get to see the best 
doctors? We don't know, because apparently the Supreme Court has 
decided that the bureaucracy must be fully imbued with all power.
  That means again that the President and his administration wins their 
religious liberty and the right to force their religious views down the 
throats of the American people. While the President wins, the American 
people lose, and they lose under the protections of the Constitution. 
It is unlike anything we have ever seen before in the history of the 
United States of America. It is a seminal day in Washington, D.C., and 
it is why the American people better wake up really quickly and watch 
what is happening, because we are living in a country we no longer 
recognize. It is being rewritten by unelected bureaucrats. It is being 
rewritten by Supreme Court Justices who apparently think that the

[[Page H2642]]

amendments in the Constitution are optional rather than mandatory.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, God bless Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence 
Thomas. I didn't hear Justice Thomas ask questions. He normally 
doesn't. It is extraordinary to spend time with Justice Thomas. You 
find out rather quickly just how really brilliant he is.

                              {time}  1615

  He didn't need affirmative action to get him into Yale Law School--or 
Harvard, as he was accepted to, but at the time thought was too 
conservative.
  Justice Scalia took on the Government's position. The Government's 
attorney stood up and basically said if a corporation is for profit, no 
matter how religiously convicted the holders of that are, they have no 
right to religious beliefs. Scalia took him on and said there has never 
been a case.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________