[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 103 (Thursday, June 25, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4762-H4765]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUPREME COURT ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moolenaar). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been a big day over at the Supreme 
Court and a big day for the Constitution as the Constitution has taken 
a rather profound hit.
  I understand the rules, Mr. Speaker. The rules are made clear. We 
will not impugn anybody's integrity and office up here, so I am not 
talking about an individual, I am talking about how completely 
dishonest, disingenuous, and how much affront to the Constitution and 
pure candor the majority's opinion is at the Supreme Court.
  Nothing is more of an indictment against the majority opinion than at 
the end of the opinion itself. The majority indicted themselves with 
their own words.
  At the end of the majority opinion, the majority says, ``In a 
democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the 
people. Our role is more confined''--and then quotes from Marbury v. 
Madison--``to say what the law is.''
  The Court today goes on to say: ``That is easier in some cases than 
in others. But in every case we must respect the role of the 
legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading 
of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan.
  ``Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance 
markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the 
Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter. 
Section 36B can fairly be read consistent with what we see as Congress' 
plan, and that is the reading we adopt.''
  The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit is 
affirmed.
  That majority opinion is an indictment of the majority. The 
Constitution is worthless--absolutely worthless--when we have a 
majority of the Supreme Court that makes up law or in this case says: 
Do you know what? We know what Congress passed, we have read it, and we 
get it.
  It makes exceedingly clear that unless a State sets up a State 
exchange for health care, then that State will be punished by not 
getting subsidies. That was debated, and that was included by the 
majority of the House and Senate without a single Republican vote, not 
a single Republican vote.
  As the former chair of Ways and Means told some of our Members: We 
don't need your vote, and we don't want your input.
  They did it as one party, jamming this down the throats of the 
Republican Party and the majority of the American people. That is why 
they lost the majority in November 2010.
  They made it very clear. If you don't set up a State exchange, you 
don't get the subsidies in your State. God bless all the States that 
stood up and said: No, this is wrong. A majority of the American people 
didn't want this. You passed this without any input from nearly a 
majority of the constituents that are represented by Republicans. You 
didn't care that it was the most partisan a bill that has ever passed 
in Congress. You didn't care. You forced it. It is bad for Americans, 
and we are not going to help you by setting up a State exchange. Yes, 
we understand the law is very clear. Our State doesn't get the 
subsidies from the Federal Government--those are called bribes to be 
more literal--our State won't get the bribes that you throw back at us 
that came from our taxpayers if we don't set up the State exchanges. We 
understand that.
  So what happens? The people that passed that bill and the President 
that helped pass the bill and forced it through and signed it realized 
they had made a major mistake, and rather than come and get Republicans 
to fix the disaster they had created, the President who had indicated 
he has a pen and he has a phone, decided: That allows me to make law, 
create new law, and change law completely that I have already signed 
into law because I got a pen and a phone, I can just change it upon my 
whim.
  The President basically decided, through his administration, they 
decided that they would set up Federal exchanges. Even though the law 
was

[[Page H4763]]

very unequivocal, those States get no subsidies. They decided we better 
start giving them subsidies. If I sound sensitive about this, Mr. 
Speaker, it is because I am.
  This disaster of a healthcare bill that costs so many of my 
constituents the health insurance they liked because they were lied to 
every time they were told by anybody if you like your policy you can 
keep it, that was a lie, and when people were told, Nobody that is in 
this country illegally will ever get insurance under ObamaCare, that 
was a lie.
  When they were told, If you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor, no matter who told it to them, that was a lie. They were all 
lies.
  We found out later they talked about it within the White House and 
decided: Well, the best thing to do is not to tell everybody that they 
stand a good chance of losing their own health insurance and losing 
their doctor and losing their hospital and losing their particular 
policy that may keep them alive. Let's don't tell them that. Let's just 
say, if you like your doctor, if you like your health care, you can 
keep it.
  The bill passed. It was a bad bill, and now, we have a Supreme Court 
that has entered into the fiction and the fraud that this opinion can 
somehow act like the law was equivocal when it was very unequivocal.
  God bless Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas at the--well, the 
minority opinion, as it says here, I have a copy of the whole opinion, 
including the dissent, Justice Scalia with Justice Thomas and Justice 
Alito join, dissenting.
  That dissent starts by saying the Court holds that when the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act says ``exchanges established by the 
State,'' it means ``exchanges established by the State or the Federal 
Government.''
  That is, of course, quite absurd, and the Court's 21 pages of 
explanation make it no less so.
  The dissenting opinion also states in answer to the question of 
whether someone who buys insurance on an exchange established by the 
Secretary gets the tax credit, he says: ``You would think the answer 
would be obviously.''
  Obviously, there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear 
a case about it. In order to receive any money under section 36B, an 
individual must enroll in an insurance plan through ``an exchange 
established by the State.'' The Secretary of Health and Human Services 
is not a State.
  Further down, he says: ``Words no longer have meaning if an exchange 
that is not established by a State is `established by the State.' ''
  Further down he quotes: ``The plain, obvious, and rational meaning of 
a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden 
sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity 
and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover.''
  That quote is from Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Company.

                              {time}  1730

  Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the government 
should lose this case, but normal rules of interpretation seem always 
to yield to overriding principle of the present Court: the Affordable 
Care Act must be saved.
  Mr. Speaker, the trouble this Nation is in when we have a President 
who makes law at the sound of his voice, at the stroke of his pen, 
without going through Congress, and then that is aggravated 
exponentially by a Supreme Court that enters into the charade.
  As the Court said on page 5 of its dissent, adopting the Court's 
interpretations means nullifying the term ``by the State,'' not just 
once, but again and again throughout the act.
  It goes on to point out that the term ``by the State'' is mentioned 
seven times throughout the bill and that the majority on the Court, 
they could care less about the Constitution, they could care less about 
their oath. They feel their job is to uphold anything that this 
President and the former Democratic majority sent to them, regardless 
of how badly it requires them to ax the Constitution.
  Page 12 of the dissent says: ``For its next defense of the 
indefensible, the Court''--talking about the majority--``turns to the 
Affordable Care Act's design and purposes.''
  Well, obviously, they need to turn to something because the law was 
very clear. To get the subsidies, a State had to set up an exchange.
  Page 13 of the dissent says: ``Having gone wrong in consulting 
statutory purpose at all, the Court goes wrong again in analyzing it.''
  Page 15 of the dissent says: ``Compounding its errors, the Court 
forgets that it is no more appropriate to consider one of a statute's 
purposes in isolation than it is to consider one of its words that 
way.''
  Page 16 of the dissent says: ``Worst of all, for the repute of 
today's decision, the Court's reasoning is largely self-defeating.''
  It goes on to explain why.
  Page 18 of the dissent says: ``The Court's decision reflects the 
philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions 
it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory 
machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to 
give Congress `all legislative powers' enumerated in the Constitution, 
citing article I, section 1. They made Congress, not this Court, 
responsible for both making laws and mending them.
  ``This Court holds only the judicial power, the power to pronounce 
the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair 
laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the 
ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we 
concoct. We must always remember, therefore, that our task is to apply 
the text, not to improve upon it.''
  The dissent actually cites precedent for that very language.
  Trying to make its judge-empowering approach seem respectful of 
Congressional authority, the Court asserts that its decision merely 
ensures that the Affordable Care Act operates the way Congress meant it 
to operate.
  First of all, what makes the Court so sure that Congress meant tax 
credits to be available everywhere? Those are great questions that the 
dissent asks, even though they are rhetorical.
  The Supreme Court struck a blow for tyranny today. I predicted this 
for quite some time because when you have someone who is Solicitor 
General under the Obama administration and who has the job of 
advising--well, first of all, defending legislation and defending acts 
that the administration wanted defended in court, but of course, part 
of that means, as any good lawyer will tell you, that attorney that 
defends you in court must give you advice about that which he or she 
may have to defend in court.
  Either we had a Solicitor General go before the Senate and lie that 
there had never been any discussions about the Affordable Care Act, 
about ObamaCare, in the presence of the Solicitor General, or the 
Solicitor General was completely incompetent.
  Everybody that voted for that Solicitor General should have their 
heads examined because either a lie or incompetence should have been 
enough to keep a former Solicitor General from going on to the Supreme 
Court of the land. It didn't happen. That person went on the Court.
  It also is reprehensible for judges, Justices, on the Supreme Court 
to flaunt the law, disobey perhaps one of the most critical laws 
assigned to the court, in order to participate in an opinion in which 
they want to change the law.
  Apparently, since the Supreme Court didn't come down with a decision 
regarding same-sex marriage today, that should be coming out next week. 
So far, there has been no notice that the two Justices that perform 
same-sex weddings would be disqualifying themselves as 28 U.S.C. 
section 455 says.
  With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I have a chart.
  28 U.S.C. section 455 says very clearly in A part--there is an A part 
that would disqualify judges, or Justices, and then there is a B part 
that may as well, but A is a certainty.
  ``Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall 
disqualify himself''--that can be male or female--``in any proceeding 
in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.''
  That is the law. When we have two Supreme Court Justices that, so 
far, have given no indications of anything but that they are going to 
intentionally knowingly violate that law and participate in a majority 
opinion,

[[Page H4764]]

then we have to wonder how much longer this little experiment in a 
democratic republic will last. I would submit not much longer.
  The laws of Moses, the Bible, helped found this country. When all 
seemed lost and nothing appeared to be agreeable to a majority in the 
constitutional convention, they took a recess to go worship God at the 
Reformed Calvinist church in Philadelphia.
  We still have part of what the preacher prayed, what he spoke. He 
seemed to make a real difference because they came back. As Alexander 
Hamilton noted--someone not noted for being spiritual--he noted that, 
clearly, the finger of God was involved in bringing together people 
that could not agree in such an incredible document.
  We turn our back once again today, as a majority of the Supreme Court 
did, on the clear meaning, clear statement of the law. So far, I hope 
and pray they will have a change of heart and not disobey the law in 
order to try to change law overriding State constitutions, as it may.
  I hope and pray they will have a change of heart and they will 
disqualify themselves, anyone on the Supreme Court, who clearly, not 
just might reasonably be questioned, but they clearly were biased and 
partial when it comes to same-sex marriage. Hopefully, they will 
disqualify themselves, and we will get an opinion by a more objective 
Court; but if they don't, we are looking at a constitutional crisis of 
incredible proportions.
  Does a country have to follow a law created out of whole cloth by a 
majority of unelected judges who violate the law itself in order to 
create new law? I think the answer is: No, you don't have to follow 
that kind of law.
  There is no question that the persecution of Christians who practice 
their religion, as set out in the Bible, will be forced to subject 
themselves to persecution, as this administration already has shown.
  It doesn't matter if you are a nun and you have devoted your entire 
life to helping the poor and the downtrodden, your little sister of the 
poor; it doesn't matter to this administration.
  They are going to drag you through the muck, through the devastation 
of having to go to court, all because you happen to believe what the 
Founders believed, the huge majority since, heck, over a third of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually ordained 
Christian ministers, and then the great work by churches to force the 
Constitution to mean what it said so that slavery was eliminated, the 
great work of an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, 
Jr., in pushing the issue of civil rights for one and all, so that one 
day, hopefully, we can have people judged not by the color of their 
skin, but by the content of their character.
  The things Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in, that he was ordained 
and preached, the things those abolitionist churches believed with all 
their hearts, if the Supreme Court does what the indications are they 
will likely do, they would be persecuted for their beliefs, our very 
Founders would be persecuted for their beliefs. This isn't about 
slavery. We did away with that. It is tragic.
  No one, no matter what their sexual preference is, should be 
discriminated against; but when it comes to marriage, it is the 
building block, the foundational building block established by nature 
itself, by nature's God, by the law of Moses, the Moses imprint that 
exists above my head here in this Chamber, that exists on the southern 
wall of the chamber of the Supreme Court, and is the law as Jesus laid 
it out regarding marriage when he quoted Moses.
  We are coming into some difficult days, and I am afraid this decision 
today that mocks the law, both case law and the written law, we are 
coming into some difficult days.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 6 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Rothfus), my friend.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. ROTHFUS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I heard the discussion going on about today's Supreme 
Court decision, and I, too, am very troubled by what I read today. To 
me, there are a couple of big issues at play here.
  One is accountability and how this Congress 5 years ago rammed 
through legislation without reading it. We all remember the famous 
line: ``Pass it to find out what is in it.'' The American people 
continue to find out what is in it. I heard the President talking today 
about this law's being woven into the fabric of the country. What is 
being woven into the fabric of the country are higher premiums, higher 
deductibles, less choice, more Washington, more bureaucrats, more 
forcing people to violate their consciences. That is not the way we 
need to be going.
  Now we see how the Supreme Court for the second time has allowed, 
really, a lack of accountability. When we saw in the NFIB case how they 
said, ``Oh, it is not a penalty; it is a tax,'' there were people in 
this Chamber who argued for the Affordable Care Act in saying there are 
no taxes here. Then the Supreme Court absolved them of that 
responsibility by saying, ``Oh, it is a tax. We will keep it in 
place.'' Here today is clear language that subsidies would go to only 
those exchanges that were established by the State.
  There is a serious problem here, and it is not just with Congress' 
not being held accountable for the laws it passes; there is a 
separation of powers issue here as we see another branch of the 
government invade the lawmaking responsibility that this Congress has. 
Again, I want to talk about Justice Scalia's dissent here.
  ``The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should 
endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a 
supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the 
American people's decision to give Congress `all legislative powers' 
enumerated in the Constitution.''
  That is what the Constitution says.
  ``They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making 
laws and mending them. This Court holds only the judicial power--the 
power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the 
prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as 
the people lack the ability to throw us out of office''--that is, the 
Supreme Court--``if they dislike the solutions we concoct.''
  This is the Congress' responsibility to amend the laws, not the 
Supreme Court's. The dissent continues:
  ``Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting 
it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do 
about the Act's limitation of tax credits to State exchanges . . . The 
Court's insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress 
both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional 
lassitude.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is the Congress' job to make law. It is the Court's 
job to interpret the law, not to rewrite the law as it did in the NFIB 
case and not to rewrite the law as it did today.
  I thank the gentleman for raising these very serious issues as to 
what happened with the Court today.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman's observations.
  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I knew when I stood with Mr. Rothfus in the 
Senate Chamber in recent years past, in support of a filibuster, that I 
would enjoy standing with him on other occasions, and I appreciate so 
much his observations.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to finish with this observation from John 
Adams, 1776 July. He is writing to Abigail. In the last paragraph, he 
writes:
  ``You will think me transported with enthusiasm''--in talking about 
the Declaration of Independence--``but I am not. I am well aware of the 
toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this 
Declaration and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the 
gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that 
the end is worth more than all the means, that posterity will triumph 
in that day's transaction even though we may regret it, which I trust 
in God we shall not.''
  For this to stand as a country, as a democratic Republic as created, 
it takes courage and it takes integrity, and we didn't get that from 
the Supreme Court today.

[[Page H4765]]

  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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