[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17032-17033]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
               OBAMACARE VIOLATES THE ORIGINATION CLAUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Brooks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, in a bold and agile display of 
legal sophistry, United States Supreme Court Justice John Roberts 
upheld the Affordable Care Act by declaring it a tax, while failing to 
address whether the tax complied with the Origination Clause of our 
Constitution.
  The case of Sissel v. The United States Department of Health and 
Human Services is pending before the D.C. Court of Appeals and headed 
to the Supreme Court. Sissel challenges the constitutionality of 
roughly 20 tax increases that fund government-run health care.
  Constitution article I, section 7 is the Origination Clause. It 
states, in part, that ``all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate 
in the House.''
  I have joined 40 Members of Congress in a friend of the court brief 
filed this week that urges the court of appeals to obey the 
Constitution and declare the Affordable Care Act taxes unconstitutional 
because they violate the Origination Clause.
  On October 8, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3590, 
the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act, a six-page bill. H.R. 3590 
raised no taxes or revenue of any kind. To the contrary, H.R. 3590 cut 
taxes for veterans buying homes.
  The Senate took H.R. 3590, deleted its substantive provisions and 
substituted a six-page bill with a 2,074-page bill, commonly referred 
to as ObamaCare, that raised roughly $50 billion a year in new taxes, 
making it one of the largest tax increases in the history of America.
  None of these ObamaCare tax increases were in the original House 
bill. Hence, all of these new tax increases originated in the Senate, 
not the House, thereby violating the Origination Clause requirement 
that tax increases originate in the House.
  The Origination Clause was subject to significant debate during 
America's 1787 Constitutional Convention. Massachusetts convention 
delegate and America's fifth Vice President, Elbridge Gerry, stated 
that the Origination Clause was ``the cornerstone of the

[[Page 17033]]

accommodation'' of the Great Compromise of 1787 that persuaded a 
majority of the States to ratify the Constitution.
  Stated differently, but for the Origination Clause, there would have 
been no Constitution and no United States as we know it. The 
Origination Clause was that important.
  Virginia Delegate and coauthor of our Bill of Rights, George Mason, 
explained opposition to Senate tax originations when he declared:

       The Senate did not represent the people, but the States in 
     their political character. It was improper, therefore, that 
     it should tax the people. Again, the Senate is not like the 
     House of Representatives chosen frequently and obliged to 
     return frequently among the people. They are chosen by the 
     States for 6 years, will probably settle themselves at the 
     seat of Government, will pursue schemes for their 
     aggrandizement, will be able by wearing out the House of 
     Representatives, and taking advantage of their impatience at 
     the close of a long Session, to extort measures for that 
     purpose.

  Mr. Speaker, America's Founding Fathers did not trust the Senate to 
originate and raise taxes because Senators sat unchallenged for 6 
years, the greater part of a decade, and were too insulated and 
unaccountable for the taxes they forced on American citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, no American court in history has ever upheld the 
constitutionality of taxes under the circumstances presented by 
ObamaCare. Doing so now would undermine and nullify the letter and 
spirit of the Origination Clause in a Constitution that has served 
America so well for so long.
  Mr. Speaker, every Federal judge and justice took an oath to defend, 
protect, and uphold our Constitution. If these judges will put their 
partisanship and egos aside, if these judges will apply the 
Constitution as it is written and intended, if these judges will simply 
honor their oath of office, then ObamaCare will be declared 
unconstitutional because it violates the Origination Clause, and 
America's dangerous and failing experiment with socialized medicine 
will have ended. ObamaCare will be dead, and quality health care for 
Americans will survive.

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