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39 Precinct Chair Filings on 12/30/09!

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Legislating Under the Influence

News Clips

National

WSJ: Insurers Brace for Sweeping Changes to Industry Landscape
WSJ: Both Parties to Highlight Bill in Bid to Win Over 2010 Voters
WSJ: A Comparison of Tax Changes in House, Senate Health Bills
WSJ: Firms Warn of Cuts to Benefits
WSJ: Drug Makers Hope to Avoid Bitter Pill in Final Legislation
WSJ: The Senate Postmortem: Every Democrat cast the deciding health-care vote
AP: Senate bill could hurt insurers initially

Chicago Sun-Times: Is requiring health insurance even legal?

Lubbock AJ: District 83 race shaping up as the one to watch in 2010

Texas

Lubbock AJ: District 83 race shaping up as the one to watch in 2010

Austin American Statesman Recession adds more Texans

Texas Tribune Grin & Bexar it

Tarrant County Filings

Ensign, DeMint to Force Vote on Health Care Bill Unconstitutionality

December 22, 2009 – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and John Ensign (R-Nevada), raised a Constitutional Point of Order on the Senate floor against the Democrat health care takeover bill on behalf of the Steering Committee, a caucus of conservative senators. The Senate will vote tomorrow on the bill’s constitutionality.

“I am incredibly concerned that the Democrats’ proposed individual mandate provision takes away too much freedom and choice from Americans across the country,” said Senator Ensign. “As an American, I felt the obligation to stand up for the individual freedom of every citizen to make their own decision on this issue. I don’t believe Congress has the legal authority to force this mandate on its citizens.”

“Forcing every American to purchase a product is absolutely inconsistent with our Constitution and the freedoms our Founding Fathers hoped to protect,” said Senator DeMint. “This is not at all like car insurance, you can choose not to drive but Americans will have no choice whether to buy government-approved insurance. This is nothing more than a bailout and takeover of insurance companies. We’re forcing Americans to buy insurance under penalty of law and then Washington bureaucrats will then dictate what these companies can sell to Americans. This is not liberty, it is tyranny of good intentions by elites in Washington who think they can plan our lives better than we can.”

Americans who fail to buy health insurance, according to the Democrats’ bill, would be subject to financial penalties. The senators believe the bill is unconstitutional because the insurance mandate is not authorized by any of the limited enumerated powers granted to the federal government. The individual mandate also likely violates the “takings” clause of the 5th Amendment.

The Democrats’ healthcare reform bill requires Americans to buy health insurance “whether or not they ever visit a doctor, get a prescription or have an operation.” If an American chooses not to buy health insurance coverage, they will face rapidly increasing taxes that will rise to $750 or 2% of their taxable income, whichever is greater.

The Congressional Budget Office once stated “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

A legal study by scholars at the nonpartisan Heritage Foundation concluded: “An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party, with tax penalties to enforce it, is unprecedented– not just in scope but in kind–and unconstitutional as a matter of first principles and under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents.”