Recently in Preemption Category

The Seventh Amendment provides that " [i]n Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved... Accordingly, we must conclude that the Seventh Amendment provides a right to a jury trial where the copyright owner elects to recover statutory damages... The right to a jury trial includes the right to have a jury determine the amount of statutory damages, if any, awarded to the copyright owner. It has long been recognized that "by the law the jury are judges of the damages.'' Lord Townshend v. Hughes, 2 Mod. 150, 151, 86 Eng. Rep. 994, 994-995 (C.P. 1677). Thus in Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 55 S.Ct. 296, 79 L.Ed. 603 (1935), the Court stated that "the common law rule as it existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution'' was that "in cases where the amount of damages was uncertain[,] their assessment was a matter so peculiarly within the province of the jury that the Court should not alter it.''

So wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in his opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court, when it ruled in a 1998 copyright infringement case that the Seventh Amendment requires the right to a jury trial where the copyright owner elects to recover statutory damages. In Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., the Court overruled the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had affirmed a district court's ruling denying Feltner's motion for a jury trial. Justice Thomas' opinion included a discussion of the applicability of the Seventh Amendment to copyright infringement cases and, in effect, a terrific defense of the right to a civil jury trial and the role of local juries. Justice Thomas noted that even before adoption of the Constitution, in England and in the American colonies, "copyright suits for monetary damages were tried in courts of law, and thus before juries." And he wrote that the Copyright Act of 1790 didn't change that practice.

Ironically, the attorney asserting Mr. Feltner's Seventh Amendment rights was John Roberts, now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and during oral argument before the Court, he eloquently noted the historical role and significance of civil jury rights enumerated under the Seventh Amendment:

In light of clear historical practice on both sides of the Atlantic prior to 1971, Feltner had a right under the Seventh Amendment to have a jury make that finding and others on which the award was based and determine the amount of damages to be imposed within the statutory limits.

The idea that... when Congress fixes the amount of the penalty it can therefore delegate that task to judges ignores the whole purpose of the Seventh Amendment.

The Seventh Amendment is to protect against judicial bias and corruption and overreaching and, while that's not implicated when Congress fixes the amount because Congress is doing that, the judge is just applying it, when you give that task to the judge the whole reason for having the Seventh Amendment comes into play...

As someone who has criticized the Roberts Court for decisions denying civil jury trials in a number of preemption and arbitration cases, I was surprised to learn of this defense of the Seventh Amendment by Justice Thomas. My thanks to Bob Peck of the Center for Constitutional Litigation in Washington for pointing it out. Now if only the Roberts Court would only take a realistic view of the practical and harmful impacts of federal preemption and forced arbitration clauses on our right to a civil jury trial.

The chairman of the top health subcommittee in the House, Rep. Joe Pitts, announced this week that the House GOP would offer a "replace Obamacare" bill that be a "free-market alternative." But he added that the proposal would mandate a federal cap on awards in medical malpractice lawsuits filed anywhere in the U.S. There's nothing "free-market" about using federal law to give orders to juries and judges sitting in state courtrooms. The Founding Fathers trusted local juries to make the decisions on claims before them, including the level of damages. That's why so many Republican Members of Congress, conservative legal scholars, and states' rights advocates have criticized legislative proposals to federally mandate awards in medmal lawsuits, tell local judges which cases they can and cannot handle, and impose federal wage controls on attorneys. Did Rep. Pitts pay any attention when Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia, promised that he would sue to stop such a law more quickly than he sued to stop Obamacare? Or when Randy Barnett, co-counsel for the NFIB in the lawsuit to kill Obamacare, wrote that tort law belongs exclusively to the states and called out Republicans like Pitts as "fair-weather federalists?" Or when his fellow Republicans in Congress such as Senators Tom Coburn and Mike Lee, and Reps. Lee Terry, Morgan Griffith, Ted Poe and Louis Gohmert stood up for the Founding Fathers' vision of liberty, trusted local juries and opposed federal medmal limits? Or when Rob Natelson of the conservative Independence Institute documented the writings of the Founding Fathers, in which they clearly insisted on protecting the right to a civil jury trial in state courts from federal interference? Or when the Cato Institute reported that medmal caps hurt consumers, or when the non-partisan National Conference of State Legislators objected to federal medmal limits in a letter to Congress? What do the 7th Amendment and 10th Amendment mean to Rep. Pitts?

Why doesn't he realize that his beloved federal cap on medmal lawsuit awards shares the same basis in constitutional theory as the Obamacare he wishes so hard to replace? Both are fundamentally based on the expansion of the Commerce Clause initiated after the Supreme Court's decision in Wickard v. Filburn. The Obama Justice Department cited that case in its briefs in Obamacare cases (page 18), and the American Tort Reform Association cited it in a paper supporting federal medmal limits (page 2). Or does Rep. Pitts recognize only those limits on federal power with which he agrees?

And why - WHY - does Rep. Pitts want to reward the pro-Obamacare and pro-abortion AMA and their buddies among medical groups, who shoved the individual mandate down our throats? Why does he want to give them partial civil immunity from deadly medical errors when they're pursuing the federal takeover of all health care?

Maybe most importantly, is Rep. Pitts speaking just for himself or for most or all of the House GOP? If he took off on his own to propose an unconstitutional and hypocritical bill, then it's easy to predict the bill won't enjoy even the support of too many Republicans. Let's hope so.

I posted the following eleven months ago to prove that Ronald Reagan never believed that the federal government should run state civil justice systems through federal tort reform or caps on damages awarded in state courts. With President Obama poised to deliver another State of the Union and the Republican Presidential race raging at full tilt, I thought it would be instructive to repost what I wrote in February 2011.
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During the recent 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, we read many tributes to him and re-read many of his greatest speeches. I worked for the 1980 Reagan campaign during law school, was a political appointee in the Commerce Department during the Reagan Administration, and my wife worked for the President in the West Wing, so I joined in all the attention paid to my favorite President.

I thought it was time to go back and research President Reagan's personal stance on federal tort reform. I knew a number of senior officials in the Reagan Administration who were for some federal interference with the right to a jury trial for civil suits and states' rights, notably then-Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, for whom it became a personal crusade. But when reviewing President Reagan's major speeches, from before the 1980 election to the end of his Presidency in 1989, I found the following:

1. Ronald Reagan never proposed any tort reform measure during any of his eight State of the Union speeches, and never criticized trial lawyers in them either. I've searched every word of his SOTUs. It's a strange fact that President Obama proposed more tort reform in this year's SOTU than Ronald Reagan did in eight SOTUs (I wonder if Republicans are comfortable with that).

2. Reagan didn't criticize trial lawyers or propose tort reform in his major address to Congress on April 28, 1981, in which he proposed his economic plan. This was his first speech since the assassination attempt on his life, and it set up the entire Reagan Revolution.

3. Reagan didn't criticize trial lawyers or propose tort reform in either of his Inaugural Addresses in 1981 and 1985. Neither did he in either of his speeches accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1980 and 1984.

4. I can find no mention of this topic in any of his major speeches prior to his election: not in his famous "Time For Choosing" speech in 1964; not in his speech to the first CPAC conference in 1974; not in a speech at Hillsdale College in 1977 titled, "Whatever Happened to Free Enterprise" - none of them. It's obvious that Ronald Reagan wasn't interested in limiting civil suits.

In 1986, President Reagan gave a speech at the Chamber of Commerce, in which he backed the findings of a "Tort Reform Working Group" (TRWG) inside the Administration. To backtrack: The Reagan White House created a number of "Working Groups" to address a variety of topics. For instance, I worked on a "Consulting Services Working Group" that changed the procurement of outside consultants and saved the Commerce Department several million dollars. The TRWG proposed a group of sweeping tort reform proposals, many of which are also included in H.R. 5, the bill reported last week by the House Judiciary Committee to impose federal limits on health care lawsuits.

Here's what Reagan said about the TRWG proposals in his 1986 speech, and note the emphasis on protecting states' rights:

Earlier this year I endorsed the report of my Domestic Policy Council's Tort Policy Working Group. This report contains a number of recommendations, recommendations that include fixed-dollar limitations for certain kinds of awards and the establishment of assurances that liability judgments go to those actually wronged or injured and not to the lining of their attorney's pockets. Now, one of the report's most important recommendations urged our administration to submit reform legislation to the Congress.

This legislation, carefully drafted, has now been introduced in the Congress by Senator Robert Kasten and Congressman Hamilton Fish. It restores the fault standard, which requires that actual fault or wrongdoing must be established in most cases before liability can be assessed. It limits pain-and-suffering and punitive damage awards, awards the amount contingency-fee lawyers could earn, and restricts the joint and several liability doctrine that can force a single defendant to pay all damages even if he is only partly to blame. To be sure, much tort law would remain to be reformed by the 50 States, not the Federal Government. And in our Federal system of government this is only right. Many of the Tort Policy Working Group recommendations, for example, would have to be implemented at the State level to be fully effective. This administration's bill represents a much-needed overhaul of Federal laws governing interstate commerce -- one of the fields of authority the Federal Government is specifically granted by the Constitution -- and sets an example of common sense for the rest of the Nation to follow.

To my knowledge, and with the limitations that come with Internet research, this is the only speech in Ronald Reagan's long political career that comes close to proposing specific federal tort reform measures. And he recognized that states are the proper venue for the debate over tort reform, under "our Federal system of government," not the federal government. And he said it ONCE. He didn't follow up that speech with any other, not at the 1987 CPAC conference, not at the 1988 Republican convention, nowhere. You can do your own research and try to prove me wrong (I suggest you start at this website and at this website, where I found links to every speech cited in this post).

Anyone asserting that "Ronald Reagan was for tort reform" is mistating the Reagan record. It wasn't a priority for him, he didn't see civil litigation as a major problem, and it appears that he gave only one speech on it. That's certainly no basis for sweeping away states' rights in a new federal tort reform law.

In August, I asked here whether we would see Presidential candidate Rick Perry as the hardcore states' rights advocate, or Rick Perry the hardcore advocate of limiting the 7th Amendment right to a civil jury trial through limitations on plaintiffs' rights. He couldn't logically be both, since federal tort reform is completely incompatible with the concept of states' rights under the Constitution and Tenth Amendment. But Perry tried to be both, with no success. Perry suffered from the same malady as Michelle Bachmann, who falsely promoted herself as a "Constitutional conservative" while proposing federal medical malpractice laws (which would benefit the medical device industry located in her district). Republican primary voters were smart enough to see the blatant inconsistencies of the Perry and Bachmann campaigns, simultaneously calling to protect states' rights while they urge closing state courtroom doors under federal law. To his credit, Gov. Perry seemed to back off of federal tort reform in the fall and winter; it wasn't included in his "Cut, Balance and Grow" economic plan, and he stopped mentioning it in debates.

Gov. Perry ended his campaign today by endorsing Newt Gingrich. It's time to ask the same question about Newt Gingrich, still one of the frontrunners for the GOP nomination. Will we see a states' rights champion or an advocate for closing courtrooms and crushing constitutional rights?

I see Gingrich as evolving in his position during the past year or two. The "Old Newt" was a hardcore tort reformer with no respect for the right to a civil jury trial or states' rights. "Old Newt" developed a "Contract With America" in 1994 which propelled Republicans into a House majority and Gingrich into the Speaker's chair. It was blatantly pro-federal tort reform and didn't protect state authority for any purpose whatsoever. And an early version of a new "Contract," posted in early 2010 on the conservative Newsmax website, included a call for "Litigation Reform." But Gingrich has championed his support for states' rights in recent years, most notably in the books such as "Fed Up" (ironically co-authored with Rick Perry). As his Presidential campaign revived, he proposed enforcing the 10th Amendment "to return power back home" to the states, as part of the new "Contract With America."

So, you might ask, where is Newt now on this issue? Interestingly, Gingrich hasn't mentioned federal tort reform at all in the Presidential debates. When Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli called out Bachmann over her disrespect for state civil justice systems, Gingrich didn't respond either way. Although his campaign website proposes in one sentence to "Stop junk lawsuits that drive up the cost of medicine with medical malpractice reform," I'm not aware of any forum in which he's proposed it. When Rick Santorum, an unrepentant non-states'-righter, slammed Ron Paul over Paul's principled criticism of a national tort law, once again Gingrich didn't take the bait and didn't jump in on either side. It's fair to say that with the exception of that one sentence, Gingrich can claim that he's not for federal tort reform. Does he stand by that sentence or was it just an addition by a campaign staffer to make some contributors happy? If reports on the Internet about Gingrich and Perry building a pro-10th Amendment platform are true, we'll have a real means of judging Gingrich's fidelity to constitutional principle.

Will he recognize that the Founding Fathers unreservedly left authority over tort law out of the hands of the national government when they drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Does he agree with conservatives such as VA AG Ken Cuccinelli, Sens. Tom Coburn and Mike Lee, Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler, and top anti-Obamacare legal experts such as Randy Barnett and Walter Olson, all of whom said last year that federal tort reform is an unconstitutional abridgment of states' rights and that tort law isn't an enumerated power for Uncle Sam under the Constitution? Will he see the folly of rewarding the AMA and their associated medical groups, who want to use an unlimited Commerce Clause to justify national healthcare as well as special immunity from liability for harmful medical errors? Does he now realize that trial lawyers and civil suits had nothing to do with the Wall Street crash, the housing bubble and its collapse, the BP oilspill, and that those actors in those types of scandals need to be held accountable before local juries as the Founders intended?

Let's hope we see the "New Newt" standing for open courtrooms and state sovereignty, not the "Old Newt" who sought unconstitutional legal protection for selected sections of American business.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has taken another opportunity to expand the use of forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, denying us the right to negotiate such clauses out and take our claims to a jury. On the heels of the landmark ATT Mobility v. Concepcion decision, the Court held in CompuCredit v. Greenwood, that companies that promise to repair an individual's credit can force customers into arbitration, instead of to a judge or jury trial, under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), even though the 1996 the Credit Repair Organizations Act gives consumers "the right to sue," because the latter act doesn't explicitly overrule the FAA. The impact of this decision extends the scope of the FAA and represents another in a string of decisions approving of forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.

A 1965 Supreme Court decision included a powerful summary of the detriments of arbitration: "Arbitration differs from judicial proceedings in many ways: arbitration carries no right to a jury trial as guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment; arbitrators need not be instructed in the law; they are not bound by rules of evidence; they need not give reasons for their awards; witnesses need not be sworn; the record of proceedings need not be complete; and judicial review, it has been held, is extremely limited."

Forced arbitration clauses are never negotiable by the consumer, and the proceedings are heavily biased towards the business. The FAA might now be the most powerful anti-jury trial federal law on the books, with consumers trapped.

Within the last week, two conservatives who have previously opposed federal tort reform on constitutional grounds did so again. Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, wrote Tort Reform? It's Unconstitutional on World Net Daily on December 13. He began by reiterating the Founding Fathers' support for the right to a civil jury trial:

First, there is no authority in the Constitution for the federal government to take over an area of law that has always been governed by the states. There is also no provision in the Constitution that allows the federal government to impose price controls on one industry or even one segment of an industry.

Perhaps more importantly, it flies in the face of what the founders undoubtedly considered the most important of the constitutional rights, the right to a jury trial.

The Founding Fathers considered the jury trial to be so important that it is the only right in the Bill of Rights that is specifically enumerated in two amendments.

Then Judson recounted the story of the McDonald's "Hot Coffee" case to show how the real facts of that case differ markedly from the mythology surrounding it, and how the jury decision in the case led to a change in corporate behavior:

In the end, the jury decided that Ms. Liebeck was partially at fault for the accident, so the damages award was reduced by 20 percent to $16,000. Ms. Liebeck asked for punitive damages, and the jury, after considering the evidence, awarded punitive damages of $2.7 million, or the equivalent of two days of profit McDonald's receives from its coffee sales.

In post-trial motions, the judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. In the end, McDonald's settled the case, and the details were kept confidential.

The free-market system is a wonderful system. It promotes good behavior and punishes bad behavior. McDonald's chose to sell its coffee at a temperature that caused injuries to people so it would make more money. The jury sent McDonald's a message, and today McDonald's does not sell its coffee at 190 degrees.

Rob Natelson, longtime law professor and constitutional scholar at the Independence Institute in Colorado, also reiterated his opposition to federal tort reform last week in an interview on the nationally syndicated What's Up radio program, hosted by Terry Lowry. On November 21, I posted about his new study, The Roots of American Judicial Federalism, in which he quoted from the numerous writings of the Founding Fathers. They clearly opposed any federal intervention in state judicial systems, including in civil justice issues. Rob's interview on December 12 was broadcast in four parts, with the third segment and the fourth segment (podcasts) the most pertinent, discussing the separation between federal and state powers as developed during the Founding Era. Proponents of federal tort reform ignore the sizable body of evidence presented by Rob Natelson and real Constitutional conservatives, but have lost the intellectual and political battle in Washington during 2011.

During a speech on November 11 at the national convention of the Federalist Society, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah discussed why he could not vote for the jobs bill proposed by Senate Republican leadership (he voted "present"), even though it included many economic growth proposals with which he agreed. The Senator made it clear that he would have trouble voting for any federal tort reform bill, because most such bills inherently override states' rights. Here is a transcript of the pertinent section of that speech:

I had a situation just yesterday in which members of my party put forward a proposal consisting of a lot of bills rolled together. I agreed with almost all of them. Almost all of them achieved some favorable policy objective. But there was one with which I fundamentally disagreed; not because it was bad policy, but because it was utterly reconcilable with principles of federalism to which I took an oath. There was one portion of this Republican jobs package that would have told state courts, applying state law, reviewing state causes of action, that they were subject to certain limits, all in the name of interstate commerce; all because these things, like everything else, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. I wanted to vote for the bill. Were I a member of the state legislature in the State of Utah, I would have voted for that kind of tort reform. But I couldn't do it, because it's not within my power. It was painful not to be able to vote in favor of that bill, but sometimes we have to do painful things, even when they undercut our underlying policy interests. In other words, just as textualism and originalism need to be protected and preserved, they need to be followed religiously so that they don't come under fire, and correctly as I believe, as simple tools to bring about a conservative philosophical revolution of sorts, we in the political branches of government who are dyed-in-the-wool advocates of federalism need to stick to federalism. Federalism is the answer, not just because it leads to right results, but because it is the right result, and it is the law. (Emphasis mine.)

Senator Lee's comments were met with applause by the audience, who obviously recognized and approved of his steadfast allegiance to constitutional principles.

During questioning by the audience, Senator Lee conceded that Congress could enact "some medical malpractice reforms" for federal suits brought in federal courts under federal law, or if such a bill is tied to "the provision of medical services with federal funds." But the federal tort reform bills being pushed by the AMA and other medical groups are straightforward, head-on, bills to crush states' and individual rights in health care-related lawsuits. Personally, I don't foresee Republicans proposing a bill to limit Medicare or Medicaid recipients' right to civil litigation, because of the political backlash it would generate.

Senator Lee's courageous vote on that bill and his statement in his speech place him squarely among the many Republicans and Tea Party-side conservatives who have come to recognize the unconstitutionality of federal tort reform bills. That growing list includes Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli; constitutional law expert Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute; Professor Randy Barnett; Tea Party movement leaders Judson Phillips and Mark Meckler; and many others, including critics of the plaintiffs' bar, all of whom insist on upholding the Constitution and Bill of Rights over political objectives. They've found, as Rob Natelson has detailed in his new study, that the Founding Fathers clearly and specifically did not want state tort law and state courts pre-empted or overruled by Congress through federal tort reform.

You can watch Senator Lee's entire speech below; scroll to the 20-minute mark to hear him discuss this issue.

In their zeal to adopt a federal malpractice reform bill to dictate procedures to state courts, many Republicans in Congress are doing precisely what they rightly accuse Democrats of doing: blithely disregarding the Constitution's clear limits on federal power.

Their proposals, once encapsulated in H.R. 5 and then slipped into the Senate Republican "jobs bill," not only violate the true meaning of the Constitution, but also likely run afoul of such modern Supreme Court cases as New York v. United States and Printz v. United States, which voided efforts to impose unfunded federal mandates on state officials. The same Virginia attorney general who brought the first suit against Obamacare has threatened to challenge this measure in court as well.

The effort to impose federal control over state courts and state civil justice violates one of the core principles of our federal system: That most judicial matters are local. Keeping courts and procedures local is, in fact, a crucial protection for individual liberty.

As I show in my new paper, "The Roots of American Judicial Federalism," one of the chief causes of the American Revolution was the British effort to undercut local courts by centralizing the administration of justice. As I also explain, after the Revolution Americans deliberately enshrined the local-control principle in our Constitution.

In other words, medical malpractice reform, like most other aspects of civil justice, is a matter for state, not federal, law. (Emphasis added.)

So wrote Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Independence Institute in Colorado, in a post titled, "Congress, Butt Out! The Constitution Reserves Malpractice Reform for the States" to introduce his newest research study, The Roots of American Judicial Federalism. Rob Natelson is one of the most respected constitutional scholars in America; was Montana's best known political activist -- leading, among other campaigns, the most successful petition-referendum drive in Montana history -- and in June 2000, was the runner-up among five candidates in the party primaries for Governor of Montana.

The Roots of American Judicial Federalism is not Rob Natelson's first foray into the federal medical malpractice debate. In April, he became the first of a long line of conservative and Tea Party-side activists and scholars who oppose federal medmal laws on federalism grounds. In his letter to Congress, he spelled out the constitutionally based objections to H.R. 5, the primary bill desired by the medical groups to limit all health care lawsuits, including those filed for medical malpractice. "H.R. 5 flagrantly contravenes the limitations the Constitution places places upon Congress, and therefore violates both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. H.R. 5 is purportedly an exercise of the Constitution's Commerce Power. Yet as I shall explain, its subject-matter--civil actions in federal and state courts--is not within the Constitution's meaning of 'Commerce.' Nor can H.R. 5 be justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause as incidental to the regulation of interstate Commerce."

In the opening page of Roots, Natelson explains that the Founding Fathers were committed to reserving tort law for the states, even years before the drafting of the Constitution.

In drafting the Constitution, the Framers provided for additional federal judicial authority. Like the post-1768 pre-Revolutionary pamphleteers, however, they rejected proposals for a central government with power over all activities with inter-jurisdictional impact. Instead, they limited federal authority to items specifically enumerated. Reserved to the states would be nearly all the authority they had exercised previously, including power over state court procedures and over existing areas of substantive jurisdiction. With a few exceptions, therefore, the states were left in exclusive possession of the law of torts, contracts, inheritance, property, and criminal law.

When the Constitution became public in September, 1787, opponents argued that the Constitution could be construed to permit Congress or the federal courts to exceed prescribed limits. They contended that the new government might interfere with criminal and civil justice within the states. The Constitution, they said, should be rewritten to prevent manipulation of its terms by legal "sophistry."

To quiet such apprehensions, the Constitution's proponents explained to the ratifying public that the Constitution, if adopted, would grant only restricted authority to the new government. The Constitution's proponents listed for the ratifying public numerous areas in which the federal government would have no power and the states would enjoy exclusive power. Among the areas listed were several pertaining to state judicial systems.

The remainder of the study reveals the detailed writings of the Founding Fathers in support of judicial federalism. Professor Natelson quotes them time and again, including in letters and pamphlets that many Americans have probably never read before:

Like earlier authors, the writers of the 1774 pamphlets emphasized that judicial matters should be administered locally. In his Novanglus, (John) Adams pointed out that the dispute between colonists and the British government was not limited to taxes:

"Is the threepence upon tea our only grievance? Are we not in this province deprived of the privilege of paying our governors, judges, &c.? Are not trials by jury taken from us? Are we not sent to England for trial? Is not a military government put over us? Is not our constitution demolished to the foundation?"

Alexander Hamilton, in A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress, agreed:

"Give me the right to be tried by a jury of my own neighbors, and to be taxed by my own representatives only. What will become of the law and courts of justice without this? The shadow may remain, but the substance will be gone. I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed."

Professor Natelson discusses the assurances that delegates to the Constitutional Convention gave to the public that the right to a civil jury trial would not be abridged:

At the New york convention, Hamilton underscored exclusive state jurisprudence over internal state administration, arguing that state powers are "civil and domestic--to support the legislative establishment, and to provide for the administration of the laws." He added that:

"Were the laws of the Union to new-model [reform] the internal police of any state; were they to alter, or abrogate at a blow, the whole of its civil and criminal institutions; were they to penetrate the recesses of domestic life, and control, in all respects, the private conduct of individuals,--there might be more force in the objection; and the same Constitution, which was happily calculated for one state, might sacrifice the welfare of another."

Chancellor Robert R. Livingston assured the convention that state power over traditional areas of judicial power was exclusive:

"They tell us that the state governments will be destroyed, because they will have no powers left them. This is new. Is the power over property nothing? Is the power over life and death no power? . . .In one word, can [Congress] make a single law for the individual, exclusive purpose of any one state?"

Natelson concludes by discussing the fight to recognize the right to a civil jury trial and the states' right to run their own civil justice systems through a Bill of Rights.

Federalists had to go beyond representing the meaning of disputed provisions. They also had to promise that they would support a bill of rights once the Constitution was ratified. Five of the 11 ratifying state ratifying conventions had accompanied their approval with suggested amendments. The two states that thus far had refused to ratify, North Carolina and Rhode Island, determined to stay out of the union until a bill of rights was proposed.

Among the restrictive amendments were some restraining the federal judiciary. Thus, the Fourth Amendment regulated judicially-issued warrants, the Fifth barred double jeopardy, the Seventh prescribed jury trial in civil cases, and so on. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were the declaratory amendments. They highlighted the limited scope of federal powers, including federal powers over judicial matters.

Although the Ninth Amendment is widely misunderstood today, its principal role was as a protection for federalism, including judicial federalism. It affirmed that Congress was no more able to impair the independence of the state judiciaries after adoption of the Bill of Rights than had been true before adoption.

The Tenth Amendment, based on the most popular proposal from the states, reinforced that whatever was not given was reserved. It may have been targeted specifically against claims raised during the Confederation period that, despite the Articles' limits on congressional power, Congress enjoyed additional "inherent" authority merely by virtue of being a sovereign.

In other words, both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments rendered explicit the Constitution's implicit restraints on Congress and the federal judiciary, as explained by Federalist essayists during the ratification debates. Both amendments protected the exclusive sphere of the states, including the integrity of the state courts.

Rob Natelson's study is a enormously revealing and powerful paper that will assist real constitutional conservatives in their fight against the federal takeover of state courts. The tort reform movement finds itself without intellectual ammo, and cannot cite any writing from the Founding Fathers in support of their positions (I've offered free dinner on that). I will post quotes from this outstanding paper throughout the coming weeks.

Over a year ago, I first posted an open bet with an offer to buy the winner the best dinner in Washington, DC. I've re-posted that twice, and want to renew the bet now, because no one has even tried to win the bet. Here it is:

If anyone shows me ONE, just ONE quote from any of the Founding Fathers that is pro-"tort reform," I'll buy you the best dinner in Washington, DC, with your choice of appetizer, entree, wine (2 glasses only, $50/bottle max) and dessert. After researching the Founders' quotes on the subject for months (see the links in the right sidebar on the home page), I'm supremely confident that I have nothing to fear. For purposes of this offer, I'm defining the term "Founding Fathers" based on a list at this website, which includes signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other notable figures from the founding of the United States.

I would value this dinner at roughly $200 but I'm not limiting the offer to that amount. Go ahead, make my day!

An article in today's "Roll Call" newspaper, which covers Congress, discusses the extensive influence that Sen. Tom Coburn has over members of the debt reduction "supercommittee" charged with finding over $1 trillion in federal budget cuts ovr a ten-year period. It appears that Sen. Coburn's own "Back to Black" deficit reduction plan, which he released in July, is the basis for many pollicy proposals under consideration by the supercommittee.

That could be a positive development in the fight to protect each state's right under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution to run their own civil justice systems and each American's right under the 7th Amendment to seek a jury trial for civil suits, including medical malpractice lawsuits. Sen. Coburn's "Back to Black" plan doesn't call for unconstitutional federal tort reform in any way. Instead it relies on the states to manage their own legal systems, and specifically enables any injured patient to take a medical malpractice case to state court. Sen. Coburn also recognizes the terrible toll on patients as a result of deadly medical errors.

Sen. Coburn recommends that the federal government fund expert panels and health courts to resolve medical disputes, ideas implemented in some states and which do not, in practice, always protect a patient's rights. But it preserves the patient's right to access the state court system at any point; the state panels and health courts aren't a mandatory step. The Senator disagreed with federal tort reform solutions on constitutional grounds in an interview posted on June 30, and this plan is consistent with his objection. I'm not endorsing the plan, but at least it protects our constitutional rights from federal "tort reform" efforts.

In contrast, the American Medical Association and numerous medical groups are asking the supercommittee to squash our constitutional rights and grant total immunity to medical professionals from their errors. They sent a letter to the supercommittee that ignores the clear consensus against federal tort reform by respected conservative legal experts such as Professor Randy Barnett; longtime tort reform proponents Walter Olson and Ted Frank; Republican Members of Congress such as Sen. Coburn and Reps. Ted Poe, John Duncan, and Ron Paul; and the largest association of state legislators in the country. Rolling over the Constitution and Bill of Rights is nothing new for the AMA and most of their fellow medical lobbying groups, the co-conspirators in the enactment of ObamaCare, with its equally unconstitutional individual mandate to buy health insurance.

The Founding Fathers' insistence on individual liberty and state sovereignty over their legal systems means nothing to "Big Medicine." They're the walking definition of "Crony Capitalism" for continuously lobbying for national health care with total civil immunity. Limits in the Constitution on the enumerated powers for the federal government, and the 7th and 10th Amendments, are mere bumps in the road for the AMA and their cronies, which wants to interfere in local health care and tort law decisions so they can shape and manage our lives. There's nothing "constitutionally conservative" about federal "tort reform" laws which would ignore the Founding Fathers, shut down local juries, and deprive Americans of our unalienable rights. The supercommittee should reject these blatant attempts by Big Medicine, and instead seek real reductions in the federal deficit.

Peter Orszag, President Obama's first director of the Office of Management and Budget, was one of the key figures in the enactment of ObamaCare, with its unconstitutional individual mandate and new government bureaucracy designed to order doctors to not cure us as they see fit. He must love the idea of sitting behind the Big Desk himself, signing off sweeping Executive Orders at a rapid-fire place, ordering Americans to do this and not do that. How else do you explain his bizarre penchant for writing that the panacea for the messiness of democracy is... less democracy? He wrote exactly this in an article titled, Too Much of a Good Thing for The New Republic:

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic... But we need to confront the fact that a polarized, gridlocked government is doing real harm to our country. And we have to find some way around it.

Orszag attributes this polarization to the common, average American who has decided to not trust the mainstream media, and becomes "more radical" when meeting people "with similar opinions." And it's not the fault of "the elites," because according to some of his favorite political scientists, "polarization is not primarily an elite-driven phenomenon... Polarized politics are partly here, so to speak, by popular demand." No, the hatred for ObamaCare out there in fly-over land isn't Orszag's fault, it's just us "little people" who don't grasp the genius of all this "managed" health care.

Orszag is yet another ELITIST who blames AMERICANS for our political disagreements. He hides his hatred for Tea Partiers who revolt with his arrogant disdain for constitutional democracy behind the utterances of some equally arrogant, poli-sci psycho-babblers. During the Reagan years, we called people like this "Blame America Firsters."

And Orszag's prescription for ripping up our God-given rights and the Founding Fathers' vision of limited government? Hold on to your seat:

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions... we need to jettison the Civics 101 fairy tale about pure representative democracy and instead begin to build a new set of rules and institutions that would make legislative inertia less detrimental to our nation's long-term health...

Yeah, take it out of our hands, and build some bureaucratic dictatorial mechanisms. He wants "automatic stabilizers," like a progressive tax system and more unemployment insurance; and "more backup rules," like automatic spending triggers" when Congress doesn't do its job and pass appropriations bills on time (and note that the GOP House has been doing its job this year). Classic high-taxing big government by fiat.

And we need more "independent institutions" - you know, independent of the PEOPLE who would be ordered to do something - like that ObamaCare bureaucracy he created to dictate our health care decisions. And what about accountability to us? He sweeps that away by quoting another poli-sci "expert" who analogizes the New Bureaucratic Order to the unaccountability of Supreme Court Justices who decided on their own to legalize abortion. And we're supposed to accept MORE of that?!

Trashing the Constitution and Bill of Rights is a regular practice for Peter Orszag. Not only does he want Uncle Sammy to decide which health care we can receive and pay form and which we cannot, he wants to dictate which medical malpractice lawsuits we can file, and thus take over entire state court systems. He wrote an op-ed last year in the New York Times in which he wrote, "Lawmakers missed an important opportunity to shield from malpractice liability any doctors who followed evidence-based guidelines in treating their patients." Tort reform proponents slobbered all over it, trumpeting the Obama Administration's "conversion" to their hope for new federal powers over local juries, local judges, and local health care decisions.

Those fans of Orszag's tort reform proposal forgot, or purposefully ignored, the common thread between his ObamaCare and his medmal lawsuit limits: It would be the ORSZAGS of America who would make all the key decisions in both cases! The Orszag Elitists sitting in Washington will decide who gets the health care through ObamaCare, and the Orszag Elitists would also decide which "evidence-based guidelines" would be imposed to immunize doctors from their deadly negligence. Both are defended in lofty legalese under the Commerce Clause of the Article I of the Constitution, but patriots should know better.

Both ObamaCare and federal medical malpractice bills are based on the lust for federal power to override our decisions, made in the course of everyday life, including the judgment of twelve common, average Americans sitting in a jury box. When those decisions are made in the marbled halls of Washington, the lobbyists for the most powerful can sway a Congress, an Executive Branch, and a bureaucracy, and the people be damned.

Our Founding Fathers knew this and designed a federal government with limited enumerated powers precisely to avoid the Orszag Elitists from running our lives through ObamaCare or federal tort reform. This year, five conservative, anti-ObamaCare legal experts and two other experts who make a living criticizing trial lawyers agree that a federal medical malpractice law lies outside constitutional boundaries and is an unconstitutional violation of states' and individual rights.

Peter Orszag hasn't considered any of that and couldn't care less. He loves to play The Man Behind the Curtain, spinning the dials and twisting the institutions of American life. Our basic rights and our authority to run our own government are "harming Washington's ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing" and should be plowed under.

Remember the common danger between Orszag's ObamaCare and Orszag's tort reform: that lust for federal power.

On September 12, Texas Governor Rick Perry called for federal tort reform during the GOP Presidential debate. "You want to talk about some powerful job creation, tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women. That's what needs to happen in the states. and it's also what needs to happen at the federal level, passing federal tort reform at those federal levels." As I wrote on September 16, Gov. Perry now stands against some of the most respected Tea Party-side and conservative legal experts in America, who have written that a federal tort reform law is as unconstitutional as ObamaCare, and for the same reasons. But Gov. Perry also ignored two of the leading proponents of tort reform, who conceded months ago that a Texas-style national limit on medical malpractice lawsuits is clearly unconstitutional.

Walter Olson of the Cato Institute has been dubbed the "intellectual guru of tort reform." He was previously a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and his writing appears regularly in all of the major newspapers and networks. But on May 24, Mr. Olson wrote that conservative and anti-ObamaCare Professor Randy Barnett of the Georgetown University law Center was right in stating that tort law is strictly a state power and not subject to federal oversight. A short segment of his concession post: "Thanks to star libertarian lawprof and Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett for pointing out something that has needed saying for a while: most proposals in the U.S. Congress to address medical malpractice law run into serious federalism problems. Most medical malpractice suits go forward in state courts under state law. If the U.S. Congress wishes to impose a nationwide rule on these suits, such as by limiting damages for pain and suffering, it first needs to answer the question: under which of the federal government's constitutionally prescribed powers is it acting? Even if it can identify such authority, it should also ask: is it a wise idea--consistent with what one might call a prudential federalism--to gather yet more power in Washington at the expense of the states? Unfortunately, the backers of the current federal med-mal bill have chosen to rely on the Supreme Court's very expansive "substantial effects" doctrine..."

Ted Frank, Adjunct Fellow with the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute, is described by the Wall Street Journal as a "leading tort-reform advocate." He's also the Editor of the pro-tort reform Point of Law blog; president of the Center for Class Action Fairness; has written for law reviews and numerous media outlets; and has testified before Congress multiple times. Mr. Frank is one of the chief theorists and spokepersons for the pro-tort reform movement. But also on May 24, Ted Frank conceded that Prof. Barnett and another conservative and anti-ObamaCare Professor, Ilya Somin of the George Mason University School of Law, were correct in their criticism of a federal tort reform law. Mr. Frank's quote: "It's easy enough for Congress to condition portions of Medicare block grants on a state establishing reasonable medical-malpractice litigation guidelines, or for Congress to prohibit certain types of lawsuits over federally-funded medical care. It doesn't need to impermissibly federalize all medical malpractice litigation to accomplish reform."

So the "intellectual guru of tort reform" says that a national, one-size-fits-all law killing medmal lawsuits would have "serious federalism problems," while "a leading tort-reform advocate" says a Texas-style federal medmal law is "impermissible." Between them and the five conservative legal experts, such as Randy Barnett, it looks like the case is closed.

Is Rick Perry listening? Maybe we'll find out during the next GOP Presidential debate on Thursday. Personally, I'm not optimistic, since he ignored the writings of the five conservative legal experts and two pro-tort reform experts on the Internet months before he went nuclear on the subject.

It's remarkable that Texas Governor Rick Perry would call for federal tort reform and ignore the writings of so many highly respected conservative and Tea Party-side constitutional experts. Instead, he's sided with the pro-tort reform community in its reliance on constitutional theory that enables the federal government to trample on individual and states' rights in health care and tort law, issues which the Founding Fathers clearly reserved for the states alone. Ironically, his "federal tort reform" would reward members of health care associations, such as the AMA, AHIP, and the health insurance industry, which were the co-conspirators in the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare, which he promises to repeal. Let's review the legal theories in controversy here and how conservative legal experts have condemned federal tort reform this year.

At the start of the new Congress, pro-tort reform Republicans, led by a "Doctors Caucus" seeking special protection for their industry, introduced a bill, H.R. 5, a bill to impose stringent limits on the damages that victims of medical malpractice and other health care negligence can seek. The limits would apply to all lawsuits in the U.S. against doctors, hospitals, drug and device companies, nursing homes, and the insurance industry. The bill preempts all state laws that provide additional protections to patients.

Rob Natelson, formerly of the University of Montana Law School, is now Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, a Tea Party-side legal expert and a former Republican candidate in Montana. He was the first expert from "the right side" to criticize H.R. 5, in a letter to Congress in April, and then again in an op-ed piece on May 9. Here are some excerpts from each:

H.R. 5 flagrantly contravenes the limitations the Constitution places places upon Congress, and therefore violates both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. H.R. 5 is purportedly an exercise of the Constitution's Commerce Power. Yet as I shall explain, its subject-matter--civil actions in federal and state courts--is not within the Constitution's meaning of "Commerce." Nor can H.R. 5 be justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause as incidental to the regulation of interstate Commerce. On the contrary, during the debates over ratification of the Constitution, leading Founders specifically represented that the subject-matter of H.R. 5 was outside federal enumerated powers and reserved to the states...

Even before the Ninth and Tenth Amendments reinforced the limits, Founders, such as Madison, Hamilton, and James Wilson, among others, represented that tort law and civil justice specifically were to be state concerns. True, Congress could erect and regulate federal courts with diversity jurisdiction, but only because of separate constitutional grants, not as a result of the Commerce Power. Indeed, I have never seen any evidence that the power to erect and regulate federal courts included authority to alter prevailing tort law even in those courts, and certainly not in state courts.

To the extent that H.R. 5 regulates health care in addition to civil justice, it is also outside the Commerce Clause. No less an authority than Chief Justice John Marshall said so, in Gibbons v. Ogden, a decision celebrated as an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Power. In that case, Marshall (himself formerly a leading Ratifier) stated that "health laws of every description"--presumably including laws governing health care litigation--were reserved exclusively to the states...

Up till now the state courts have been one of the few areas of life relatively untouched by federal meddling. That is as it was supposed to be: State court systems are central to state sovereignty. Moreover, the Constitution reserves most issues of civil and criminal justice to the exclusive authority of the states, rather than the federal government. When the Constitution was being considered, its supporters said explicitly that state court systems are constitutionally out-of-bounds for Congress...

HR 5 is advertised as addressing abusive lawsuits against physicians, but it goes far beyond that. It would regulate in detail just about every American lawsuit that has anything to do with health care: What an injured party can allege in his or her initial filing, the damages he or she can recover, how damages are disbursed, burdens of proof, what the jury may and may not consider, which state laws survive and which don't. HR 5 even directs state judges to conceal pertinent information from the jury. It's not certain the Supreme Court would uphold all of this bill. But it is certainly a flagrant invasion of local control. Here's a real irony: The Republicans supporting HR 5 justify it by parroting exactly the same ridiculous "Commerce Clause" claims the President uses to justify ObamaCare.

Partially in response to the Rob Natelson's April letter to Congress, the pro-tort reform side trotted out a corporate lawyer to write a defense of H.R. 5. The paper relies on what has become, since the early 1940s, the standard basis cited for all encroachments by the federal government into business decisions. Quoting from the ATRA paper:

Since the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn, involving Congress's power to regulate the production of homegrown wheat, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause quite broadly with respect to the regulation of economic activity... The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) has closely analyzed judicial precedent and concluded that 'there seems little doubt that tort reform legislation, in general, would be within Congress's commerce power.' Under its power to regulate interstate commerce, Congress may 'make such legislation applicable to intrastate torts, because tort suits generally affect interstate commerce.' With respect to the HEALTH Act, CRS has specifically recognized that '[m]edical malpractice liability is governed by state law, but Congress has the power, under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution (Art. I, § 8, cl. 3) to regulate it.' Healthcare is truly national in scope and fundamental to interstate commerce... By placing an upper limit on subjective and otherwise limitless pain and suffering damages against doctors and other medical professionals, Congress can promote a more cost-effective healthcare delivery system... H.R. 5 is consistent with the Tenth Amendment, which provides that '[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Other conservative and Tea Party-side legal experts revolted openly against this paper and H.R. 5, and chastised House Republicans for condemning ObamaCare in one speech and pushing the expansion of fedral authority over health care and states' rights in another.

Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University Law Center, the conservative legal superstar involved in the multistate lawsuit against ObamaCare in federal court, wrote in an op-ed on May 21: "But tort law -- the body of rules by which persons seek damages for injuries to their person and property -- has always been regulated by states, not the federal government. Tort law is at the heart of what is called the "police power" of states... Indeed, if Congress now can regulate tort law, which has always been at the core of state powers, then Congress, and not the states, has a general police power. This issue concerns constitutional principle, not policy: the fundamental principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers, and that Congress should stay within these limits. Constitutional law professors have long cynically ridiculed a 'fair-weather federalism' that is abandoned whenever it is inconvenient to someone's policy preferences. If House Republicans ignore their Pledge to America to assess the Constitution themselves, and invade the powers 'reserved to the states' as affirmed by the Tenth Amendment, they will prove my colleagues right."

Prof. Barnett was interviewed on the nationally syndicated What's Up radio program by host Terry Lowry about how H.R. 5 violates the limitations on the powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. You can listen to the first segment of his interview here and listen to the second segment of the interview here (MP3 audio files). Starting at 2:32 of the second segment, he said, "Congress doesn't really have the authority to do tort reform legislation because that has historically been within the province of the states..." He proceeded to reiterate the other points of his op-ed, especially that federal tort reform legislation is an abuse of the Commerce Clause.

Prof. Ilya Somin of the George Mason University School of Law, another conservative legal expert who co-authored amicus briefs in anti-ObamaCare court cases, concurred with Prof. Barnett in a May 23 blog post. "Hopefully, at least some Republican conservatives will begin to see that you can't advocate strict limits on federal power with one hand while trying to impose sweeping federal control over state tort law with the other. In this post, I explained why federally mandated tort reform is, in most cases, both constitutionally dubious and unnecessary. The better way to restrict abusive tort suits is through interstate competition combined with constraints on states' ability to regulate conduct outside their borders." The previous post to which he referred was in February in which he wrote, "In my view, however, current precedent is badly misguided in allowing Congress to regulate virtually any 'activity.' Therefore, I think most federally mandated tort reform is in fact unconstitutional, even if the Supreme Court would permit it to go forward."

Yet another respected conservative professor, Jonathan Adler of the Case Western Reserve School of Law, wrote a very brief comment against H.R. 5 in support of an attack from an unusual source, an pro-tort reform advocate, about which I will write in a separate post. Prof. Adler wrote that, "support of a particular policy goal does not require abandoning a principled commitment to the broader federalist scheme." Professor Adler is a frequent contributor to the events and publications of the Federalist Society, considered the premier conservative-side legal organization in the country.

Professor John Baker, a Distinguished Scholar at Catholic University Law School, Professor Emeritus at LSU Law School, and frequent presenter at Federalist Society events, wrote on the Daily Caller website on June 22 that H.R. 5 and ObamaCare are two peas from the same post-Willard Commerce Clause pod:

To justify their efforts to nationalize medical malpractice law, House Republicans are stretching the Supreme Court's New Deal Commerce Clause jurisprudence almost as far as Democrats did for Obamacare. Both national medical malpractice reform and Obamacare are radically at odds with our constitutional structure of federalism, though Obamacare is especially radical because it represents the first time that the federal government has required people to purchase a product (health insurance).

What compels House Republican leaders to ignore the Constitution? Nationalizing medical malpractice law would not necessarily protect hometown doctors. Some states currently offer doctors better protection, without being subjected to federal bureaucrats. Other states would do so if doctors worked their own state legislatures, rather than relying on a Washington lobby, the American Medical Association.

The explanation for the eagerness of House Republican leaders to nationalize even more of the economy is a simple reality: both Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans like the New Deal interpretation of the Commerce Clause, which allows them to expand national power. They would just do so for different purposes.

Prof. Baker went further, warning Republicans like Rick Perry that enacting a federal tort reform bill like H.R. 5 could boost the chances that the Supreme Court would rule favorably on the Affordable Care Act. "Seeing that Republicans are as willing as Democrats to nationalize different parts of healthcare, the justices might conclude that there is a Congressional consensus to nationalize all of healthcare. Since justices tend to defer to Congress, that might be enough to tip the scales in Obamacare's favor."

Is that really what Rick Perry wants? To boost the chances of victory for ObamaCare?

Rob Natelson returned to the subjects of federal tort reform and the Commerce Clause on July 18 in the course of a discussion on Chief Justice John Marshall and his signature case, Gibbons v. Ogden, on the Tenth Amendment Center website:

"Gibbons v. Odgen is often appealed to, as Justice Jackson did, for a very broad reading of the 'commerce' component of the Necessary and Proper Clause. Under this reading, the Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to regulate any economic activity "substantially affecting" interstate commerce: agriculture, mining, manufacturing, heath care, insurance, medical marijuana--in fact, the entire economy.

However, Gibbons did not even mention the Necessary and Proper Clause. The primary holding of Gibbons was that navigation was within the prevailing legal definition of 'commerce' for constitutional purposes--a decision that, under the original understanding of the Constitution, was clearly correct. Some of the Court's dicta (extraneous language) added that in some circumstances commerce (including navigation) within state boundaries might be so tied up with interstate commerce that Congress could regulate it as well. But when Marshall addressed other aspects of the economy, it was to say that they were outside of Congress's power. He specifically mentioned 'health laws of every description' as being reserved exclusively to the states.

So those who use Gibbons to argue for the constitutionality of federal control of manufacturing, agriculture, land use, or health care are twisting some of Marshall's words and omitting others.

In other words, the pro-ObamaCare forces and the pro-tort reform causes make the same error for the same reasons. In both cases, the result of victory in each case would be the exercise of excessive federal power, to the detriment of individual rights and the rights of individual states to regulate and manage the daily activities of the citizenry.

That makes FIVE conservative legal experts, bright shining stars in the conservative legal universe, standing against the concept of federal tort reform. Two other legal experts wrote about the unconstitutionality of H.R. 5, but they deserve special discussion in another post, because they're pro-tort reform advocates who recognized the unconstitutionality of H.R. 5.

Rick Perry used to be a sincere advocate of states' rights. He was against a federal tort reform bill as recently as last year.

Rick Perry, November 4, 2010, on CNN:

"One of the reasons why I was never for a national tort reform was because I think we do it better in the state of Texas... that ought to be our decision in the state of Texas."

Now? Well, he's under pressure from other Republican candidates, so he whipped out his big applause line last night.

Rick Perry, September 12, 2011, during the CNN-Tea Party Express debate:

"...one of the things that's really important, one of the things that the Fed Reserve chairman said was the most powerful, one of the most powerful thing that happened, was tort reform that we passed in that state. You want to talk about some powerful job creation, tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women. That's what needs to happen in the states. and it's also what needs to happen at the federal level, passing federal tort reform at those federal levels."

But you don't have to take my word for it, watch it yourself on YouTube below!

Governor Rick Perry took the gloves off in the CNN-Tea Party Express debate, declaring war on the 7th and 10th Amendments by calling for "federal tort reform," as follows:

"...one of the things that's really important, one of the things that the Fed Reserve chairman said was the most powerful, one of the most powerful thing that happened, was tort reform that we passed in that state. You want to talk about some powerful job creation, tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women. That's what needs to happen in the states. and it's also what needs to happen at the federal level, passing federal tort reform at those federal levels."

So never mind that SEVEN conservative experts on constitutional law, including the leading anti-ObamaCare professor in America and two noted ANTI-civil litigation experts, have written that federal tort reform is an unconstitutional abridgement of states' rights. Never mind that the long list of REPUBLICANS who agree with that assessment include former Texas judge and current Congressman Ted Poe; Rep. Ron Paul; Sen. Tom Coburn; Tea Party favorite Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia; and veteran Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee. Never mind that the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, Mark Meckler of Texas, also says that tort law is a province of the states. Forget about the long letter by the bi-partisan National Conference of State Legislators, co-signed by a Texas state representive, that warned Congress against enacting federal tort reform because it violates states' rights.

Has Rick Perry or his vaunted team ever read what the Founding Fathers actually wrote about the right to a jury trial for civil suits? What about James Madison's famous admonition that the 7th Amendment right is "as essential in securing the liberty of the people as any of the pre-eminent rights of nature," and Thomas Jefferson's clear principle that trial by jury in all cases is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Doesn't he realize that
the protection of any of our inalienable rights depends, in large measure, on the right to unfettered access to state and local courts?

Conservatives like Rick Perry who think that "tort reform" can be limited to just medical malpractice cases are dreaming. When any of our rights are compromised, ALL of our rights are limited, including the rights to freely exercise our religion, bear arms, express our opinions without fear of being muzzled, and enjoy the benefits of our private property and labor freely offered.

No, Perry didn't care about constitutional principles at all. He felt the heat of all the criticism he was taking from the other candidates and grasped for the big applause line - "kill all the lawyers." He shot his mouth off in the heat of battle. Sound like a real President to you? What will he say when he's up against a real tough guy, like Ahmadinijad? If he's ignorant on some of the basic writings of our Founding Fathers, distrustful of local juries, and willing to throw the Constitution overboard for an applause line, how are we supposed to trust him with our lives and fortunes?

Ideas have consequences. I'll discuss the real-world consequences of Rick Perry's federal tort reform for victims in my next post. For starters, the consequences are that Rick Perry breaks his promises; that he's a phony "states' righter;" he's flip-flopped on the use of federal power and the Constitution as they apply to abortion, marriage, and the civil jury process; he's not a real "Tea Party" leader or representative; and he's a classic "crony capitalist." What else is there?

The first GOP Presidential debate since Texas Governor Rick Perry officially joined the race will be held tomorrow night. Prior to his announcement, I asked whether he would truly be a 10th Amendment advocate, a claim he makes constantly, or whether he would flip-flop on such issues as the states' right to run their own courtrooms, which would deprive Americans of our 7th Amendment right to a jury trial for civil suits. I have some questions which I hope will be posed to Gov. Perry and other GOP candidates tomorrow night about their support for all of our constitutional rights:

7th and 10th Amendment rights or "fair-weather federalism"?

Governor Perry, you often assert that the federal government should stop encroaching on states' rights, accusing Washington of intruding "upon the rights of the states and individuals to make decisions about our own healthcare, our businesses, our money,..." But you've flip-flopped on your stand on a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution - you were against it until you were for it - and on the need for a pro-life amendment to end abortion on demand. And your position on "tort reform" is inconsistent with that of a 10th Amendment purist. Specifically, you've proposed an amorphous concept of "civil justice reform," citing the changes in Texas law you backed to sharply limit medical malpractice lawsuits and to force the losing parties in civil suits to pay all court costs. And in your book, "Fed Up," you wrote that Republicans are for "ending frivolous lawsuits through real tort reform." However, seven experts in constitutional law, including the leading anti-ObamaCare legal expert in the federal court cases, say that federal "tort reform" is not an enumerated power of the federal government and is unconstitutional. That expert, Professor Randy Barnett, accuses Republicans of being "fair-weather federalists" in pursuit of federal "tort reform," and asserts that tort law is the exclusive province of the states. Famous and respected conservatives and Tea Party leaders agree with that judgment, such as fellow candidate Ron Paul; Sen. Tom Coburn; the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, Mark Meckler; and the former President of the socially conservative Family Research Council, Ken Connor. So will you guarantee now that as President, you will not support any sweeping federal "tort reform" bill which would override the rights of the states under the 10th Amendment to run their own courtrooms, and that you'll veto any such bill enacted by Congress?

Question for all candidates: Since many of you identify yourselves closely with the protection of individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, what is your understanding of the 7th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." James Madison, principal author of the Bill of Rights, called the right to a jury trial for civil suits "as essential in securing the liberty of the people as any of the pre-eminent rights of nature," a sentiment joined in by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and other Founding Fathers. How would you protect that right in federal and state courts? Is the 7th Amendment a "lesser amendment" in your mind than the 2d Amendment right to bear arms, and if so, why?

Bill of Rights & American law or Sharia?

For all candidates, but starting with Gov. Perry: Gov. Perry, some conservative experts and commentators have expressed concern about your relationships with pro-Islamist elements such as the Aga Khan and its associated entities, especially the Aga Khan Foundation, over its involvement in the development of a "Muslim Histories and Cultures Program" in Texas schools. Longtime critics of radical Islam such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have reviewed the course curriculum and questioned whether you are allowing the Aga Khan Foundation to present "a fantasy benign Islam, with all the violent and oppressive bits cut out." Strict Islamic Sharia doesn't protect the Constitutional rights of women as equal to men, and doesn't recognize basic Constitutional rights such as the right to a jury trial for criminal and civil cases. But a recent study by a conservative group warns that local courts are applying Sharia, not the U.S. Constitution and American law. In recent years, anti-Sharia activists have promoted a movement to ensure that American courts enforce only American laws and not those enforced elsewhere, such as Islamic Sharia law. Given your declared allegience to the Bill of Rights, will you endorse that movement, and propose measures to ensure that Sharia law is excluded from contemplation in civil and criminal cases in all courts in the U.S.? Will all GOP candidates also endorse that movement?

"Constitutional conservative" or "crony capitalist?"

Question for Rep. Michele Bachmann, in part based on the previous question for Gov. Perry: You describe yourself as a "Constitutional conservative" and, like Gov. Perry, say that you're for defending states' rights. You are recently quoted saying that "the current government is acting outside the bounds of the Constitution. Probably the most obvious would be this Obamacare and the individual mandate that is unconstitutional and is currently contained in Obamacare." But you are a co-sponsor of the most sweeping federal "tort reform" bill introduced this year in Congress, a bill which would effectively immunize health care and pharmaceutical companies which have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to your campaigns. Considering the conservative opposition to any federal "tort reform" bill on states' rights grounds, why shouldn't voters consider your declaration just another position by a "crony capitalist" who stands on the Constitution in order to help backers in the business community?

Religious freedom & right of conscience or abortion rights?

Question for all candidates: Last year, a federal court of appeals ruled that a pro-life Catholic nurse didn't have the right to sue the hospital where she worked and that forced her to participate in an abortion. The court ignored the nurse's Constitutional rights to freely exercise her religion and act in accordance with her conscience, rights explicitly recognized for medical personnel in federal and state law. This year, the Obama Administration rescinded a Bush-era regulation that provided conscience protections for medical workers so they could refuse to administer treatments they find morally objectionable. Will each of you commit to restoring the rights of medical workers to sue health care employers when the employer forces the employee to engage in morally objectionable treatments?

On July 27, I wrote for the third time about the real facts on the severe limits imposed in Texas on medical malpractice lawsuits. This week, Terry Lowry, host of the nationally syndicated What's Up radio program, interviewed Alex Winslow, Executive Director of Texas Watch, about the results of the virtual elimination of those lawsuits through a constitutional amendment.

Mr. Winslow discussed the promise made to voters in Texas in 2003 that individual and overall health care costs would be reduced as a result of the limits in medmal lawsuits. But state and family costs (premiums and out-of-pocket costs) have risen and the state's cost of health care is rising faster than national average, the exact opposite of what was promised. Texans were promised that giving away their right to hold wrongdoers responsible in a civil jury trial would result in lower costs.

Texans were also promised that that the quality and access to care would improve, and by every measure those promises have also been broken. The access to health care - the number of doctors - has not increased at all in rural and poor areas, such as in the Rio Grande Valley. The AMA still ranks Texas in the mid-40s in the number of physicians per capita, so the influx of doctors in Texas hasn't kept up with the increase in state population. Meanwhile, according to Mr. Winslow, the Texas Medical Board, which is supposed to sanction bad doctors, is neither acting more quickly nor sufficiently sanctioning the small percentage of dangerous doctors in Texas. For instance, the TMA doesn't run background checks on doctors moving from another state; a doctor practicing in Corpus Christi apparently left Minnesota in a hurry after leaving a trail of medmal claims.

You can listen to the first segment of the interview here, the second segment here, and the third segment here.

I've written often about Rep. Ron Paul's support for real Constitutional conservatism and states' rights, including for protecting state civil justice systems from federal takeover through "tort reform" or limits on state medical malpractice lawsuits. Recently the conservative Club for Growth issued a "Presidential White Paper" about Dr. Paul's votes on key issues, and they devoted an entire section to "Tort Reform." It's obvious that on this issue, the CfG is no more of a "Constitutionally conservative" group than many groups in the business community - check out the following comments on Dr. Paul's stand:

The American economy suffers from excessive litigation which increases the cost of doing business and slows economic growth. The Club for Growth supports major reforms to our tort system to restore a more just and less costly balance in tort litigation.

Representative Paul opposes federal tort reform for the same reason he opposes most federal solutions--he believes the federal approach "damages the Constitution by denying states the right to decide their own local medical standards and legal rules." To that end, he has voted against many tort reform measures in Congress...

Instead of traditional federal tort reform, he proposes "private contractual agreements between physicians and patients" that "enables patients to protect themselves with 'negative outcomes' insurance purchased before medical treatment." In theory, Paul's solution may help alleviate the situation, but it is politically untenable. While Paul's idealism is laudable, he has not offered a viable alternative for dealing with a problem that is hurting American consumers and businesses, while diminishing our international competitiveness.

So when it comes to the civil justice system, the CfG treats the Constitution as just a "laudable ideal" that isn't "viable" in dealing with "problems." There's nothing Constitutional about that stance. The Founding Fathers didn't think that way. Dr. Paul doesn't think that way, thank God. Neither do Republican Members of Congress like Reps. Ted Poe, Lee Terry, and Morgan Griffith, or Sen. Tom Coburn. Seven nationally respected experts on the Constitution, the National Conference of State Legislators, and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler don't think so either. They recognize that "a problem that is hurting American consumers and businesses" is no excuse for cutting the Bill of Rights in half.

The Club for Growth's disdain for Constitutional limits on federal power is closer to the views of the pro-ObamaCare crowd than it is to the Founding Fathers or the Tea Party movement's views. To the Club for Growth, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are movable targets subject to negotiation and the impact of lobbying and campaign contributions, not a set of firm principles of limited government protecting God-given, "unalienable" rights. Candidates seeking the support of the Club for Growth should be wary of their demands.

One editorial note here about what has been termed by politicians and the public the "ridiculous" debt limit debate as the compromise bill is enacted. Now matter which side you take in the outcome, it should be clear that the issue highlights the massive size and scope of federal power today (80 million checks a month!), and the tendency for that power to eventually overshadow all other facets of Americans' daily life. That's exactly what the Founding Fathers feared, and why signers of the Constitution, such as George Mason, Eldridge Gerry and Edmund Randolph, led the movement to ensure that federal power is limited even beyond the language of the Constitution, through enactment of a Bill of Rights. Many wise legal scholars are asserting, correctly, that the Commerce Clause in Article I of the Constitution was never intended as the basis for either ObamaCare or a sweeping federal tort reform/medical malpractice bill. George Mason explicitly warned that, absent a Bill of Rights, the power granted in Article I would eventually overpower both God-given individual rights (including the right to civil jury trials) and the authority which is better left to the states.

In the midst of overheated rhetoric about the intentions of either sides in the debt limit debate (I take particular offense to the characterization of Tea Party activists as "terrorists"), I hope all Americans determine that any enterprise with this much power MUST be limited by strict and pure adherence to the protection of individual and states' rights. Any politician who adheres to such a belief cannot pick and choose between which rights to protect and the time at which to protect them. The "ridiculous" debt limit debate is the perfect opportunity for those of us who cherish the right to civil jury trials to remind the rest of America that the man who drafted the Bill of Rights, James Madison, referred to that particular right in the highest terms: "as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature."

Over the course of the year, I've quoted constitutional scholar Rob Natelson of the Tea Party-side Independence Institute numerous times, for his clear writings condemning a federal bill to limit damages awarded in medical malpractice and other health care-related lawsuits. He continues to analyze the original writings of the Founding Fathers to determine their intentions for the scope and shape of the powers enumerated to the federal government in the Constitution.

Writing recently on the pages of the Tenth Amendment Center, Natelson wrote an article titled, "The Greatly Misunderstood Chief Justice John Marshall." In it he discussed the twisting of Marshall's legacy by historians to justify judicial activism. Included in the discussion is an analysis of Marshall's rulings in key cases such as McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the case often cited for an expansive view of the Commerce Clause by proponents of both ObamaCare and a federal tort reform bill to override state court systems. Natelson describes the actual intention of Marshall's rulings in those two cases:

Marshall's treatment of the Necessary and Proper Clause in McCulloch v. Maryland is widely misunderstood by people who (A) don't know the law of the time, (B) haven't read the entire opinion, and/or © don't know that two of the words Marshall used--"convenient" and "appropriate"-- had narrower meanings in his time than they have today. Marshall himself explained the decision in a subsequent series of op-eds, where he acknowledged that the Necessary and Proper Clause is not a grant of power at all, but an interpretive guide.

Gibbons v. Odgen is often appealed to, as Justice Jackson did, for a very broad reading of the "commerce" component of the Necessary and Proper Clause. Under this reading, the Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to regulate any economic activity "substantially affecting" interstate commerce: agriculture, mining, manufacturing, heath care, insurance, medical marijuana--in fact, the entire economy.

However, Gibbons did not even mention the Necessary and Proper Clause. The primary holding of Gibbons was that navigation was within the prevailing legal definition of "commerce" for constitutional purposes--a decision that, under the original understanding of the Constitution, was clearly correct. Some of the Court's dicta (extraneous language) added that in some circumstances commerce (including navigation) within state boundaries might be so tied up with interstate commerce that Congress could regulate it as well. But when Marshall addressed other aspects of the economy, it was to say that they were outside of Congress's power. He specifically mentioned "health laws of every description" as being reserved exclusively to the states.

So those who use Gibbons to argue for the constitutionality of federal control of manufacturing, agriculture, land use, or health care are twisting some of Marshall's words and omitting others.

In other words, the pro-ObamaCare forces and the pro-tort reform causes make the same error for the same reasons. In both cases, the result of victory in each case would be the exercise of excessive federal power, to the detriment of individual rights and the rights of individual states to regulate and manage the daily activities of the citizenry.

Americans are fortunate to have someone like Rob Natelson who has the ability and time to dig into the details of the foundational documents of our nation and educate us on the limits on federal power as intended by the Founders.

"Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me. That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business."

That's Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, quoted by the AP and repeated in Politico yesterday. So obviously, Gov. Perry should be in favor of protecting state tort law regimes and against federal tort reform, right?! After all, his fellow Texans, Rep. Ron Paul and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler, are already on record against it, and another Texas Republican, Rep. Ted Poe, is against H.R. 5, the medical malpractice tort reform bill pushed by Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith.

We need a clear statement from Gov. Perry on his stand on federal tort reform if he runs for President. Either he's the real deal like Ron Paul, or he's just another inconsistent "Constitutional conservative" like Michele Bachmann and all of the other GOP Presidential candidates right now.

The Gang of Six proposal includes a sentence to save "an unspecified amount through medical malpractice reform." But that's unconstitutional. Sen. Coburn said so three weeks ago when he compared the idea to ObamaCare: "What I worry about as a fiscal conservative and also as a constitutionalist, is that the first time we put our nose under the tent to start telling Oklahoma or Ohio or Michigan what their tort law will be, where will it stop? In other words, if we can expand the commerce clause enough to mandate that you have to buy health insurance, then I'm sure nobody would object to saying we can extend it enough to say what your tort law is going to be." Conservative Professor John Baker, a Federalist Society superstar, says enacting national medmal reform could boost ObamaCare - "Both national medical malpractice reform and Obamacare are radically at odds with our constitutional structure of federalism..." Anti-ObamaCare Professor Randy Barnett also says federal tort reform is unconstitutional: "Indeed, if Congress now can regulate tort law, which has always been at the core of state powers, then Congress, and not the states, has a general police power." Conservative and anti-ObamaCare legal scholars Ilya Somin and Jonathan Adler concurred with Barnett's op-ed. So did tort reform advocates Walter Olson ("most proposals in the U.S. Congress to address medical malpractice law run into serious federalism problems") and Ted Frank (referring to Congress: "It doesn't need to impermissibly federalize all medical malpractice litigation to accomplish reform"). And Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute wrote the first letter to House Republicans on this subject months ago, warning against the medmal reform bill there: "H.R. 5 flagrantly contravenes the limitations the Constitution places places upon Congress, and therefore violates both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments... Here's a real irony: The Republicans supporting HR 5 justify it by parroting exactly the same ridiculous 'Commerce Clause' claims the President uses to justify ObamaCare."

There's more. Rep. Ron Paul, a medical doctor, said during the Fox News South Carolina Presidential debate that federal medical malpractice reform is unconstitutional: "It's a state matter; tort law is a state matter." Veteran GOP Congressmen such as Rep. John Duncan agree with Sen. Coburn and Dr. Paul - "I have faith in the people - I have faith in the jury system. It's one of the most important elements of our freedom, and it was so recognized in the Constitution..." And the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislators wrote to Congress slamming H.R. 5, the "medmal reform" bill: "Federal medical malpractice legislation inappropriately seeks to preempt various areas of state law." Mark Meckler, Tea Party Patriots co-founder and coordinator, says "'It's not for the federal government to be adjusting the legal system of individual states." This week, veteran social conservative leader Ken Connor, former President of the Family Research Council, criticized federal tort reform as unconstitutional.

I'm disappointed that Sen. Coburn flip-flopped on his statement of three weeks ago and that the Gang of Six didn't research the constitutionality of the medmal proposal before including it. There are lots of great ideas for reducing health care costs out there in the medical community, readily available to anyone who has an Internet connection. The rest of Congress shouldn't ignore the Constitution and should drop that sentence from future deliberations.

Social conservative leader Ken Connor was interviewed on Tuesday on the What's Up radio program, hosted by Terry Lowry and broadcast nationally thanks to co-sponsorship by the American Association of Justice. Ken is not only a colleague in advocating the right to a jury trial under the 7th Amendment, but he introduced me to Terry Lowry and proposed the expansion of Terry's program to a nationwide basis, for which my readers can be very grateful. Ken was the President of the Family Research Council, is a longtime pro-life activist and leader, and founded and chairs the Center for a Just Society. He's also a veteran trial lawyer with an outstanding record of representation for his many clients.

Ken discussed the basic safeguards in criminal cases that our Founding Fathers recognized in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, how those safeguards were reflected in the Casey Anthony trial, and how the verdict validates the Founders' vision. He reminded listeners that the Founders thought of the right to a jury trial for criminal cases and civil cases together. He talked about many of the points I've written about here: the Biblical basis for the jury system; the 1000+-year-old use of the jury system around the world; the Founders' inclusion of the right to a jury trial in our founding documents; and their insistence on protection in the Bill of Rights as a "cherished right."

He then turned towards the debate on "tort reform" in civil cases, noting that it is critical that an accused in either a criminal or civil case needs to have the opportunity to present his case before a local jury of peers. Terry Lowry and Ken reminded listeners of the importance of the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial system to protect our First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and so on. Ken criticized those members of his political party, the Republican Party, who seek to give corporations a free pass for tortious actions by violating the Constitutional rights of all Americans.

Ken Connor is a true "Constitutional conservative" who cherishes EVERY amendment in the Bill of Rights. You can hear Part 1 of the interview here and Part 2 of the interview here.

What makes a real "Constitutional conservative?" Rep. Michele Bachmann claims the mantle in a Daily Caller post and sets forth some elements of her definition, such as the classic Reagan-era "three-legged stool;" a limited government with specific, enumerated powers; and respect for states' rights under the Tenth Amendment. But Joseph Lawler of the American Spectator brushes off Rep. Bachmann's attempt in a few words: "With all due respect to Rep. Bachmann, it's pretty clear that she is not the standard bearer for constitutional conservatism... Insofar as Michele Bachmann supports ideas and policies that would radicalize the Republican Party, she's less of a constitutional conservatives than the Pauls and other likeminded members of Congress."

I think Lawler owes Rep. Bachmann more specifics to support his objection, so I will propose one, the one which is relevant to this website and cause. Rep. Bachmann is not a true-blue, first class "Constitutional conservative" because she is a co-sponsor of a bill that is clearly an unconstitutional exercise of federal power at the hands of the states, namely, H.R. 5, the "HEALTH Act," which would pre-empt all state tort law over health care and medical malpractice lawsuits. There can't be any remaining doubt of the bill's unconstitutionality, considering the overwhelming authority for that position, as expressed by scholars, including those usually favorably disposed to tort reform. For starters, Rep. Ron Paul, to whom Lawler referred, has clearly stated his opposition to any federal medical malpractice bill.

Prof. Randy Barnett, perhaps the premier "Constitutional conservative" scholar in America today, says H.R. 5 and other federal tort reform bills are unconstitutional. No one understands the limitations of the Commerce Clause and the constitutional protections over states' rights like Prof. Barnett, and his condemnation of federal tort reform bills is clear:

But tort law -- the body of rules by which persons seek damages for injuries to their person and property -- has always been regulated by states, not the federal government. Tort law is at the heart of what is called the "police power" of states... Indeed, if Congress now can regulate tort law, which has always been at the core of state powers, then Congress, and not the states, has a general police power. This issue concerns constitutional principle, not policy: the fundamental principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers, and that Congress should stay within these limits.

Prof. Barnett is joined in his opinion by fellow conservatives and tort reform advocates, namely Prof. Ilya Somin and longtime constitutional scholar and pro-lifer John Baker; pro-tort reformers like Walter Olson and Ted Frank; and conservative legal scholar Prof. Jonathan Adler. Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler also agrees. So does the nonartisan National Conference of State Legislators, which wrote to Congress to express its outrage over H.R. 5 and federal tort reform in general. Recently, Sen. Tom Coburn opined that a federal tort reform law would violate states' rights. Rep. Bachmann's co-sponsorship of H.R. 5, despite the judgment of some of the most respected authorities among Tea Party activists, undercuts her claim of being a "Constitutional conservative."

At the least, conservatives and Tea Partiers should agree that a "Constitutional conservative" honors and protects all of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, including the 7th Amendment right to a civil jury trial and its "uncle," the 10th Amendment.

Congress did not intend for arbitration agreements, adopted prior to an occurrence of negligence that results in a personal injury or wrongful death, and which require questions about the negligence be submitted to arbitration, to be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act.

In essence, our Constitution recognizes that factual disputes should be decided by juries of lay citizens rather than paid, professional fact-finders (arbitrators) who may be more interested in their fees than the disputes at hand.

The admission agreements in this case contain arbitration clauses that eliminate a fundamental constitutional right: the right of the parties to have a jury trial in the West Virginia circuit court system on the plaintiffs' personal injury claims against the defendant nursing homes.

The West Virginia Supreme Court wrote these statements last week when issuing rulings in three cases against the use of forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts to keep victims from taking their case to a jury of their peers. Each case involved (1) a claim that a nursing home negligently caused the death of a resident; (2) a contract signed by a representative for the resident with a clause mandating that any disputes arising from negligent treatment would be submitted to arbitration; and (3) a defense by the nursing home that the claim should be submitted to arbitration, not to a jury at trial.

The court courageously disagreed, citing Article III, § 13 of the state Constitution, which preserves the right of the people to a jury trial with language identical to that of the Seventh Amendment. The Justices also criticized the "tendentious reasoning" used by the U.S. Supreme Court in its rulings to turn the Federal Arbitration Act into a substantive law that preempts most state law.

Congratulations to the attorneys who pleaded these cases and won the victory for their clients. Hopefully this decision will start a trend in other courtrooms and spark a change in opinions in Congress about forced nursing home arbitration contracts. A bill to ban such clauses has been gathering dust for several years and needs to be resuscitated.

Seven constitutional scholars; conservative Members of Congress such as Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Ron Paul; Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler; and the national group of state legislators have already determined that a national medical malpractice ''tort reform'' bill is clearly unconstitutional. They agree that the Founding Fathers intended for the states to run their own tort law system, each in their own way, and the federal government has no business mandating a ''one-size-fits-all'' system. Dr. John Baker, a highly respected conservative scholar, discussed the constitutional issues today on the nationally syndicated "What's Up" radio program with host Terry Lowry (download podcast here).

Nevertheless, one powerful U.S. House committee chairman continues to push for H.R. 5, the so-called ''HEALTH Act,'' which would nationalize medical malpractice litigation. Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee, released a report this week on the committee's achievements during the first six months of this year. In the report, he enthusiastically supports H.R. 5 as a means of saving billions in federal spending.

Setting aside the dubious math used to arrive at that conclusion, it's amazing to me that a Republican in such a senior position would so clearly ignore the unconstitutionality of the bill. He might as well have proposed a federal sales tax on the sale of handguns and newspapers. Maybe someone in House Republican leadership can explain the meaning of the word "unconstitutional" to him. For the bill to pass the House now would be nothing but an exercise in raw, naked political power by the same medical associations who conspired to give us ObamaCare last year. Why would a Republican committee chairman back their special interest bill?

What I worry about as a fiscal conservative and also as a constitutionalist, is that the first time we put our nose under the tent to start telling Oklahoma or Ohio or Michigan what their tort law will be, where will it stop? In other words, if we can expand the commerce clause enough to mandate that you have to buy health insurance, then I'm sure nobody would object to saying we can extend it enough to say what your tort law is going to be. Then we are going to have the federal government telling us what our tort laws are going to be in healthcare, and what about our tort laws in everything else? Where does it stop?

One of the things our founders believed was that our 13 separate states could actually have some unique identity under this constitution and maybe do things differently, and I think we ought to allow that process to continue as long as we are protecting human and civil rights.

So says Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma and a veteran doctor, in a new interview with Medscape, a pro-tort reform website. Thank God there are more clear-eyed Constitutional conservatives now in Congress like Sen. Coburn, who recognizes what the Founding Fathers were actually doing when they enacted the Commerce Clause and the Bill of Rights. The Commerce Clause in no way justifies the imposition of federal tort reform laws such as H.R. 5, the medical malpractice tort reform bill to federally limit civil suits against health care providers, drug and device companies, and insurance companies. He reiterates the point that I made here on May 6, that if health insurance isn't "commerce," then neither is health litigation. Sen. Coburn also recognizes that the so-called "state flexibility" section in H.R. 5 is a joke and doesn't protect states' rights at all, in contradiction to the 10th Amendment.

Sen. Coburn joins the following SEVEN Constitutional scholars in opposing H.R. 5 and the wholesale destruction of states' rights through sweeping federal tort reform laws:

Prof. John Baker, LSU Law School
Prof. Randy Barnett, Georgetown Law Center
Rob Natelson, Independence Institute
Walter Olson, Cato Institute
Ted Frank
Prof. Ilya Somin, George Mason Law School
Prof. Jonathan Adler, Case Western Reserve Law School

Sen. Coburn is joined by Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler and real conservatives in Congress such as Reps. Ron Paul, John Duncan, Morgan Griffith, Lee Terry, and many others.

Sen. Coburn's vote for Constitutional limits on Congressional power is a breath of fresh air, and we should support him with calls and e-mails to our Congressmen and Senators.

One of my primary themes here is to remind readers that the Founding Fathers honored and protected the civil litigation process for all types of civil suits, including those filed by my friends and allies in the social conservative movement. The 7th Amendment protects the right to a jury trial for civil suits for standard tort claims arising from accidents, defective products, and medical malpractice... and that right also protects our religious liberty, gun rights, property rights, and so on. One of the points I make with my conservative friends is that "the tort reform movement is coming for you" in ways they would never imagine. This week, we might have the third instance in two years, and the second this year, in which tort reform confronts social conservatives.

In a 5-4 decision in the Pliva vs. Mensing case, the Supreme Court ruled that federal legislation regulating generic drugs pre-empts state law, effectively immunizing generics from state court cases. The decision also leaves generics in a favorable legal position compared to brand-name drugs, since the Court decided in Wyeth vs. Levine two years ago that the federal law regulating brand-names doesn't pre-empt state law, a point that Justices acknowledged in the Mensing decision. As generics constitute upwards of 70% of all drug sales, the Mensing decision marks a major step forward in the tort reform movement's campaign to eliminate lawsuits immediately upon FDA approval.

For the pro-life movement, this raises the specter that the makers of generic forms of RU-486, the "morning-after pill," can count on federal pre-emption to immunize them from civil suits over the pill's dangerous side-effects. So the Mensing decision may have created a permanent safe harbor for generic RU-486, foreclosing an important tool in the pro-life movement's fight to ban RU-486. As I posted on August 28, 2010, trial lawyers have assisted the pro-life and womens' health causes for decades, by pursuing dangerous abortifacients, unsafe drugs, and defective medical devices, all approved by a FDA asleep at the switch. Civil suits might be the last line of defense for champions of the unborn against the new wave of abortifacient technology, but not if the technology is immunized through pre-emption in federal law.

This comes after the Supreme Court decisions in the Iqbal and Twombly cases, which also impact social conservatives, especially those who litigate on behalf of their causes. I've written often on those cases and the potential impact on all plaintiffs. The Alliance Defense Fund wrote an important letter in early 2010 to Congress over its concern that the decisions could threaten every American's religious liberty through imposition of an uncertain "plausibility" standard, which invites "defensive lawyering" and subjective dismissals of complaints by individual judges.

And the House Judiciary Committee is still preparing to act on H.R. 966, the "Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act," the tort reform movement's bill to unnecessarily impose sanctions on plaintiffs' attorneys as a means of preventing lawsuits. As I wrote on March 10, "LARA" could "scare away nonprofits or small firms specializing in religious liberty cases from filing suits against large entities, for fear that a judge could impose costly sanctions.rights to protect religious liberty against infringement by various parties." If "LARA" had been in effect last year, social conservatives might not have filed a lawsuit that forced the University of Illinois to back down from threatening to fire a professor for discussing Christianity in his history class.

Social conservatives should look over their shoulder; the tort reform movement is coming for them, case by case.

Because the federal government shouldn't be involved. It's a state matter; tort law is a state matter.

Rep. Ron Paul when asked by Fox News' Shannon Bream why he opposes a federal medical malpractice law, during the GOP Presidential debate in South Carolina, May 5, 2011 (starting just after the 3:00 mark on the embedded video).

Rep. Paul has written before about his principled opposition to federal tort reform bills, and he has voted that way on the floor of the U.S. House. Rep. Paul is one of the few Republicans who have been in office long enough to have a chance to vote on H.R. 5, the "HEALTH Act," in two previous Republican Congresses, and he has never voted for it.

Rep. Paul, who has delivered approximately 4,000 babies as a licensed ob-gyn, repeated his opposition to federal tort reform bills and the general federal preemption doctrine when he was interviewed on the nationally syndicated 'What's Up' radio program by host Terry Lowry last week. You can download his interview here (mp3 file). He discusses the importance of the Bill of Rights, including the 7th Amendment, his opposition to federal preemption of state laws twice during the interview, and to federal tort reform bills starting at the 5:15 mark.

"Impermissible." That's the word used last week by pro-tort-reformer Ted Frank on the Point of Law legal blog to describe the Constitutional status of H.R. 5, the "HEALTH Act," designed to pre-empt most health care-related lawsuits around the country. His post conceding that Congress should not "impermissibly federalize all medical malpractice litigation" capped a stunning week in which intellectual support for H.R. 5 evaporated.

As I wrote here earlier, on May 21, Prof. Randy Barnett, the GOP's favorite Constitutional scholar, wrote a scathing op-ed in the Washington Examiner and a Volokh Conspiracy blog post, both of which condemn H.R. 5 as a breach of states' rights (attached as Acrobat docs). He asked out loud if the House GOP are "fair-weather federalists." His op-ed was an intellectual and political earthquake; it was very widely distributed and the subject of an article in 'The Hill' on May 23. And note that Barnett's objections are NOT resolved by exempting state constitutions and courts from the reach of the bill, as Democrats tried to do during two committee markups.

On May 22, Prof. Ilya Somin of George Mason Law School, another Tea Party-side scholar, concurred with Prof. Barnett in a Volokh blog post, and he took his own shots at GOP supporters of H.R. 5. "Hopefully, at least some Republican conservatives will begin to see that you can't advocate strict limits on federal power with one hand while trying to impose sweeping federal control over state tort law with the other."

On May 23, Ted Frank wrote his concession. Quote: "It's easy enough for Congress to condition portions of Medicare block grants on a state establishing reasonable medical-malpractice litigation guidelines, or for Congress to prohibit certain types of lawsuits over federally-funded medical care. It doesn't need to impermissibly federalize all medical malpractice litigation to accomplish reform." (Emphasis mine.)

That day, another noted legal expert on the pro-tort reform side, Walter Olson of the Cato Institute, also conceded that Barnett is right (attached in an Acrobat document). A short segment: "Thanks to star libertarian lawprof and Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett for pointing out something that has needed saying for a while: most proposals in the U.S. Congress to address medical malpractice law run into serious federalism problems. Most medical malpractice suits go forward in state courts under state law. If the U.S. Congress wishes to impose a nationwide rule on these suits, such as by limiting damages for pain and suffering, it first needs to answer the question: under which of the federal government's constitutionally prescribed powers is it acting? Even if it can identify such authority, it should also ask: is it a wise idea--consistent with what one might call a prudential federalism--to gather yet more power in Washington at the expense of the states? Unfortunately, the backers of the current federal med-mal bill have chosen to rely on the Supreme Court's very expansive "substantial effects" doctrine..." (Emphasis mine.)

On May 24, conservative legal expert Jonathan Adler added his opinion while commenting on Olson's post: "Olson is anything but an opponent of tort reform generally. Indeed, he's been one of the litigation explosion's most prominent critics. But he recognizes that support of a particular policy goal does not require abandoning a principled commitment to the broader federalist scheme." (Emphasis mine.)

On May 26, Prof. Randy Barnett was interviewed on the nationally syndicated 'What's Up' radio program by host Terry Lowry about how H.R. 5 violates the limitations on the powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. You can listen to the first segment of his interview here and listen to the second segment of the interview here (MP3 audio files). Starting at 2:32 of the second segment, he said, "Congress doesn't really have the authority to do tort reform legislation because that has historically been within the province of the states..." He proceeded to reiterate the other points of his op-ed and that federal tort reform legislation is an abuse of the Commerce Clause, a point that Rep. Ted Poe made during consideration of H.R. 5 by the House Judiciary Committee.

Also recall that Constitutional conservative Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute in Colorado wrote a letter to the House Judiciary and Energy & Commerce Committees weeks ago to advise them that H.R. 5 is unconstitutional, with arguments very similar to those of Prof. Barnett. So that's six Constitutional experts against H.R. 5, from Natelson to Adler.

There's only one important question left for Republicans about H.R. 5, and it's purely political: WHY would the House GOP run over the Constitution to reward those medical associations which were the co-conspirators in the enactment of ObamaCare, thus shoving the unconstitutional individual mandate down our throats?!

Prof. Ilya Somin of the George Mason University School of Law is the Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country's top-rated law and economics journals. His work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and numerous media outlets. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and the Voice of America, among other media, and he testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He's expressed conservative positions on ObamaCare, eminent domain abuse, property rights, and states' rights. Like Prof. Barnett, he's co-authored amicus briefs on behalf of plaintiffs seeking to declare ObamaCare unconstitutional. In other words, he's a Constitutional conservative, Tea Party-side legal expert, just like Rob Natelson and Randy Barnett.

And Prof. Somin is another of the growing group of the conservative legal experts now opposing any federally imposed tort reform law, starting with H.R. 5, the "HEALTH Act." Writing yesterday on the legal blog, the "Volokh Conspiracy," he commented favorably on Randy Barnett's post of Sunday. Wrote Prof. Somin:

I'm happy to see that his critique is having an impact. Hopefully, at least some Republican conservatives will begin to see that you can't advocate strict limits on federal power with one hand while trying to impose sweeping federal control over state tort law with the other.

In this post, I explained why federally mandated tort reform is, in most cases, both constitutionally dubious and unnecessary. The better way to restrict abusive tort suits is through interstate competition combined with constraints on states' ability to regulate conduct outside their borders.

The previous post to which he referred was in February also on Volokh, and I admit that I missed it at the time. In that post, he wrote the following:

In my view, however, current precedent is badly misguided in allowing Congress to regulate virtually any "activity." Therefore, I think most federally mandated tort reform is in fact unconstitutional, even if the Supreme Court would permit it to go forward.

Federal reform is also largely unnecessary to solve the problem of excessive tort awards. Interstate competition can be just as effective as federal mandates, often more so. If a state allows excessive tort suits, many businesses will refuse to operate there or charge higher prices. This in turn reduces state tax revenue, forcing state legislatures to curb their courts.

So now we have three real Constitutional conservatives on our side: Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute, GOP & Tea Party legal rockstar Prof. Randy Barnett, and George Mason Law Prof. Ilya Somin are all telling the Republicans that H.R. 5 and federal tort reform bills are unconstitutional. AND I'm sure there will be more. AND we have a bipartisan letter from the leadership of the National Conference of State Legislators saying the same thing.

To date, NOT ONE real Constitutional conservative, Tea Party-side legal expert will opine in favor of the constitutionality of H.R. 5. And I'd be shocked to see one do so, since that's an intellectually dishonest position.

Prof. Randy Barnett of Georgetown University Law Center is arguably the GOP's favorite Constitutional scholar. He co-authored an amicus brief for the National Federation of Independent Business in the 11th Circuit review of the State of Florida's anti-ObamaCare case; he has written often about and testified to the unconstitutionality of ObamaCare before the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee; and he's among the leading experts on the original intent of the Founding Fathers' writings, including the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Just last week, he appeared with Congressional Republicans to announce the introduction of the Repeal Amendment, which would allow states to repeal federal laws under certain conditions.

So it's stunning that Prof. Barnett has written two pieces today on the unconstitutionality of any federally enacted tort reform, beginning with H.R. 5, the Republican-sponsored "HEALTH Act," which would severely limit all health care-related lawsuits. In an op-ed appearing in the Sunday edition of the Washington Examiner, Prof. Barnett wrote:

Congress is now considering the "Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011." This bill alters state medical malpractice rules by, for example, placing caps on noneconomic damages. But tort law -- the body of rules by which persons seek damages for injuries to their person and property -- has always been regulated by states, not the federal government. Tort law is at the heart of what is called the "police power" of states... Indeed, if Congress now can regulate tort law, which has always been at the core of state powers, then Congress, and not the states, has a general police power. This issue concerns constitutional principle, not policy: the fundamental principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers, and that Congress should stay within these limits. Constitutional law professors have long cynically ridiculed a "fair-weather federalism" that is abandoned whenever it is inconvenient to someone's policy preferences. If House Republicans ignore their Pledge to America to assess the Constitution themselves, and invade the powers "reserved to the states" as affirmed by the Tenth Amendment, they will prove my colleagues right.

And in a piece on his blog hosted on the pages of the "Volokh Conspiracy," he added to his objections as follows:

When I first heard that the House was planning on pursuing tort reform, I was skeptical that there was a constitutional basis for this effort at the federal level, but thought maybe there is some legitimate federal power that, if cleverly deployed, could influence tort law at the state level. So I was disappointed when I read the law firm report on which the sponsors of the bill relied for 'constitutional authority.' The report justified the bill under the 'substantial effects doctrine.' Not only does this post-New Deal doctrine extend Congress's power well beyond the regulation of interstate commerce, it does so, not by independently determining whether the activity being regulated actually has a substantial affect on interstate commerce, but instead on whether Congress had a 'rational basis' for believing that it did. Thus does the Court defer to Congress, while the House Republicans -- just like Congressional Democrats -- defer to the Court's assessment of constitutionality. This 'double deference' is one of the secret (to the general public) tricks by which the branches of the federal government can claim to be adhering to the Constitution while actually ignoring it. It is one of the ways important passages of the Constitution's text became 'lost.'

But the 'findings' of the bill are even worse:

"EFFECT ON INTERSTATE COMMERCE"

"Congress finds that the health care and insurance industries are industries affecting interstate commerce and the health care liability litigation systems existing throughout the United States are activities that affect interstate commerce by contributing to the high costs of health care and premiums for health care liability insurance purchased by health care system providers."

These 'findings' are based on the effects on interstate commerce, not only of the 'health care and insurance industries,' but also of 'health care liability litigation systems throughout the United States' -- that is, on the affects on interstate commerce of state courts themselves! So Congress has the power to regulate tort law because state courts affect interstate commerce. By this principle, Congress has a general police power over any matter not adjudicated by state common law courts.

Prof. Barnett's logic is irrefutable, if you believe in restoring the original intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If, instead, you adhere to the position that the post-Wickard line of Supreme Court decisions justifies H.R. 5, then... get ready for ObamaCare.

This is an intellectual earthquake. Prof. Barnett's two pieces and the posts and letter by Constitutional conservative Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute trump the theories behind the business community's long war to pre-empt all state laws and courts and deprive us of our Constitutional rights. Now the battle in Congress is fully joined. It's the Founding Fathers vs. the U.S. Chamber. It's the original intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to limit Uncle Sam's power vs. new judge-made doctrines expanding Uncle Sam's power. It's the moral authority of principle and conscience vs. the naked power of business-side PAC dollars and scores of lobbyists. If GOP Congressmen and Senators vote their conscience, it'll be no contest. Call your Congressman and tell him to save the Constitution and Bill of Rights by opposing H.R. 5.

On April 5, I posted on the letter written by Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson to Congress, that "H.R. 5 flagrantly contravenes the limitations the Constitution places places upon Congress, and therefore violates both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." That bill would place new federal limits on lawsuits filed against a broad range of health care-related companies, including doctors, hospitals, drug & device companies, insurance companies, and nursing homes. It would also impose a federal wage scale on attorneys involved in those cases. Professor Natelson is an expert on the Founding Era; a former Republican candidate for Governor of Montana; and now Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Colorado, a non-partisan, free-market-oriented public policy research organization.

Among his other points was a direct criticism of a section in H.R. 5 which purports to protect states' rights. Natelson doesn't buy it: "Moreover, the section grants protection only when the state undertakes policy choices preferred by Congress. Thus, state laws that offer 'greater... protections for health care providers' are preserved, while those that offer less are overridden. States that enact statutory caps on damages receive protection, while those that make the traditional common law choice -- leaving the amount to jury and judge -- receive no protection. The section is, in other words, more in the nature of an insult to the states than a protection of federalism."

Rob Natelson reiterated his opposition to H.R. 5 yesterday, in a new post on his website, the Electric City Weblog. I quote:

"Yet, as incredible as it may seem, in light of the message send by the 2010 elections, Congress continues to consider bills to expand government. A good example is HR 5, which if enacted, would be a massive intrusion into the state court systems. (sic)

Up till now the state courts have been one of the few areas of life relatively untouched by federal meddling. That is as it was supposed to be: State court systems are central to state sovereignty. Moreover, the Constitution reserves most issues of civil and criminal justice to the exclusive authority of the states, rather than the federal government. When the Constitution was being considered, its supporters said explicitly that state court systems are constitutionally out-of-bounds for Congress.

All members of Congress take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Many Republican members were elected after specifically pledging to honor constitutional limits. You would think they would honor their word for at least a few months. But just weeks after their swearing-in, over 100 members (mostly Republicans) had signed onto HR 5.

HR 5 is advertised as addressing abusive lawsuits against physicians, but it goes far beyond that. It would regulate in detail just about every American lawsuit that has anything to do with health care: What an injured party can allege in his or her initial filing, the damages he or she can recover, how damages are disbursed, burdens of proof, what the jury may and may not consider, which state laws survive and which don't. HR 5 even directs state judges to conceal pertinent information from the jury.

It's not certain the Supreme Court would uphold all of this bill. But it is certainly a flagrant invasion of local control.

Here's a real irony: The Republicans supporting HR 5 justify it by parroting exactly the same ridiculous "Commerce Clause" claims the President uses to justify ObamaCare. (Emphasis mine.)

Of course, it's not like Congress doesn't have anything else to do. It has its hands more than full trying to rescue the country from a financial train wreck. Congress should be concentrating on cutting the federal deficit, which this year will approach 45% of expenditures. It should de-fund organizations that essentially lobby on the taxpayers' money. It should encourage economic growth (and thereby increase revenues) by reforming the tax code to close loopholes and cut rates.

Similarly, Congress could allow states to contract with each other to opt out of ObamaCare. Most important of all, it could propose constitutional amendments to term-limit members of Congress and require a balanced budget. In the 1990s, Congress came within one vote of sending a balanced budget amendment to the states. If it had done so we would not be in the fiscal mess we are today.

If the congressional leaders can't find the two-thirds majority needed in each house to propose an amendment, they could encourage the states to use the alternative procedure the Constitution gives the states for proposing amendments.

Tea Party folks who thought they save the country around in one election are learning that we have a very long road ahead."

The Cato Institute has reprinted an article co-authored by David Kopel of Cato and Rob Natelson, senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute, asserting that "Under the Constitution, health insurance is a matter of state, not federal, jurisdiction." The co-authors write that the legal basis for asserting the constitutionality of ObamaCare rests, in large part, on "a single erroneous U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association." Kopel and Natelson punch holes in the South-Eastern Underwriters decision, pointing to Justice Hugo Black's erroneous reference to an Alexander Hamilton quote, and propose to overturn the decision on the way to killing the individual mandate in ObamaCare.

That's great, I hate ObamaCare and have repeatedly asserted that it's unconstitutional, including in the Roll Call article on me this week. The entire law is a menace to our liberties and needs to be shredded.

But if health insurance isn't "commerce" under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, then surely health-related litigation - civil suits against health care providers - isn't "commerce" either. If you agree with Rob Natelson's position about ObamaCare, then surely it's not difficult to agree with him that H.R. 5, the big anti-health-care-lawsuit bill, is also unconstitutional. He made it that clear in his April letter to Congress and posts on two Tea Party websites, the Tenth Amendment Center and the Independence Institute (scroll down that page). In his letter, Rob Natelson wrote:

To be blunt: H.R. 5 flagrantly contravenes the limitations the Constitution places upon Congress, and therefore violates both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. H.R. 5 is purportedly an exercise of the Constitution's Commerce Power. Yet as I shall explain, its subject-matter -- civil actions in federal and state courts -- is not within the Constitution's meaning of "Commerce." Nor can H.R. 5 be justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause as incidental to the regulation of interstate commerce. On the contrary, during the debates over ratification of the Constitution, leading Founders specifically represented that the subject-matter of H.R. 5 was outside federal enumerated powers and reserved to the states.

Crystal clear, perfectly consistent with the ObamaCare position, and Constitutionally based. House Republicans should abandon H.R. 5 just as they try to kill ObamaCare.

P.S. I'm wondering if the Cato Institute will write this....

I've posted often this year about H.R. 5, the "HEALTH Act," which would pre-empt state health care laws and civil suits against doctors, hospitals, drug and device companies, insurance companies, and nursing homes. Just look at the archives: senior Republican Congressmen, a top Constitutional scholar, state legislators, and the coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots all say that the Constitution bars Congress from enacting federal tort reform, including the most sweeping health care-related preemption bill ever.

Now the Tea Party Patriots are fighting for the "Health Care Compact" as a way for states to take control of health care policy, instead of watching ObamaCare's sweeping over-regulation. An e-mail from the TPP coordinators describe it this way:

The Health Care Compact is simply an interstate compact. Interstate compacts are essentially contracts between states, that, when approved by Congress, supersede federal law. Interstate compacts have been around since before the Constitution was written, and our Founding Fathers thought so highly of them that they included them in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 10), knowing that our states might someday need a mechanism to band together and take power back from the federal government.

There are over 200 interstate compacts in existence today, allowing states to regulate everything from selling life insurance across state lines to recognizing out-of-state drivers licenses. If an interstate compact imposes on existing federal law, the compact needs to be approved by Congress in an up-or-down vote. Congress is not allowed to amend the compact in any way; they can only vote yes or no. It is unclear at this time whether or not compacts require the President's signature; however, we fully intend to draw a line in the sand and force President Obama to publicly pick a side, just in time for the 2012 elections.

The HCC gives the member states the power to reject every, single, unconstitutional page. The HCC simply states that member states are free from federal health care regulations, if they so choose. Very basically, it allows states to receive health care funding with zero strings attached. No more costly, intrusive, and unconstitutional mandates.

Notice the difference between H.R. 5 and the HCC in the handling of health care-related civil litigation. The former takes over those lawsuits from the states having no lawsuit limits, and it imposes damage caps from the federal level down. The HCC keeps Washington from assuming that power and reserves regulation of the civil justice system for the states, with no specific mandate limiting the right to a jury trial for civil suits. While H.R. 5 preempts state law, the text of the HCC explicitly condemns preemption and stresses states' rights and the protection of individual liberty. H.R. 5 mandates a federal wage scale for attorneys who represent victims of health care negligence, while the HCC doesn't attempt to impose such an un-American idea. It's inherently pro-7th Amendment and pro-10th Amendment.

But note one special sentence in TPP's description - something that could kill the HCC this year: If an interstate compact imposes on existing federal law, the compact needs to be approved by Congress in an up-or-down vote. So if Congress enacts H.R. 5 before the HCC is approved by two or more states, the states would have to fight tooth and nail for Congress to approve the HCC over H.R. 5, and I think that's impossible politically. If the GOP leadership just moves H.R. 5 through the House alone, it will kill any backing by mainstream Republicans for the HCC.

The Tea Party Patriots and other backers of the Health Care Compact better recognize how quickly they could be pushed off the cliff by the forces of "Big Medicine" pushing for H.R. 5. They and their Congressional allies must tell House GOP leadership that H.R. 5 is inconsistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

"Roll Call," the newspaper that covers Capitol Hill, interviewed me and published an article about my work in support of the Constitutional rights of Americans. It includes a great quote by Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. You can download an Acrobat file of the article here, and an excerpt follows:

Andy Cochran is a tea party-supporting, religious, anti-abortion, trial-lawyer-loving conservative Republican. Seriously. 'Trial-lawyer-loving' was no typo.

The Reagan-administration-appointee-turned-lobbyist has a long list of conservative credentials. Armed with writings from the Founding Fathers and a fervor for the Constitution, Cochran is reaching out to Hill Republicans, conservative scholars and tea party activists to try to persuade them to oppose tort reform efforts making their way through Congress.

He'll reference the Magna Carta and even the Bible when arguing for the right to sue and receive damages. 'Moses said, if you take your neighbor's property, you owe, essentially, punitive damages,' Cochran said. He started 7thamendmentadvocate.org, devoted to the Seventh Amendment, which defined the right to a jury trial for civil matters.

On issues such as the lawsuit abuse and medical liability reform bills, Cochran has tapped his Rolodex of socially conservative groups that frequently push their causes through the court system. He wants to enlist them in the fight to preserve the Seventh Amendment on the grounds that the federal government could one day infringe on their ability to sue....

Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, said the tort reform issue is not 'really on the radar right now.' However, Meckler, an attorney who says he does not know Cochran and does not interact much with lobbyists, speculated that his group's membership might be sympathetic to Cochran's pitch.

'Most folks in the tea party movement would say those things should be dealt with at the state level,' Meckler said. 'It's not for the federal government to be adjusting the legal system of individual states.' (Emphasis mine.)

That works for me! Let's hope Washington is listening. Thanks to Mark Meckler for his comments and to Kate Ackley, the Roll Call reporter who conducted a fair and balanced interview.

But federalism is as much a question of deeds as words. It often takes the form of a concrete decision by this Court that respects the legitimacy of a State's action in an individual case. Here, recognition of that federalist ideal, embodied in specific language in this particular statute, should lead us to uphold California's law, not to strike it down. We do not honor federalist principles in their breach.

So wrote that noted champion of the 7th and 10th Amendments, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, on the last page of a dissent from a majority decision today that pre-empts and overrules California consumer protection law in favor of the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA"). Yes, I'm joking - I don't see Justice Breyer's name on many lips of Constitutional conservatives or Tea Party websites. And in fact, Justice Breyer has sided with pro-pre-emption Justices in other cases, notably over medical device regulation, a subject I addressed last year. But in the decision announced today in AT&T Mobility LLC v Concepcion, Justice Breyer and the three other Democrat-nominated Justices supported states' rights and dissented from the majority's pre-emption hammer. In so doing, they supported states which want to allow their citizens to exercise their 7th Amendment right to a civil jury trial when trapped by forced arbitration clauses in a consumer contract (in this case, a cell phone contract).

In contrast, each of the Republican-nominated Justices, led by Justice Scalia (who apparently has never met a pro-pre-emption argument he didn't like), struck down California state law and court decisions enabling class action lawsuits against forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. So even when a state acts to protect its citizens from such abusive contracts, the FAA trumps the state law. When faced with language in Section 2 of the FAA that should protect states' ability to revoke any contract ("save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract"), the majority flattens it:

Although §2's saving clause preserves generally applicable contract defenses, nothing in it suggests an intent to preserve state-law rules that stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the FAA's objectives

So Constitutional principles like states' rights and civil jury trials are "obstacles" to be removed or ignored.

Justice Thomas was the swing vote in this case, but still voted to abandon states' rights. He hesitated before joining the assault by writing a concurring opinion in which he asserts that he adheres to views on pre-emption expressed in a previous opinion, Wyeth v. Levine on the regulation of drugs, but then he "reluctantly" joins the Court's opinion.

The practical impacts of the decision could be enormous. As the dissent notes, it will force an end to many class actions, as few consumers and fewer attorneys will bring an individual case for small amounts of damages. Forced arbitration clauses are now buried in consumer contracts for everything from computers, credit cards and cell phones, to employee handbooks and nursing home admissions contracts. The decision also threatens the rights of employees as well. Employers are increasingly inserting arbitration clauses, with bans on class action suits, into employment contracts. It will be far more difficult for employees to fight discrimination, because they will be unable to file class action suits.

If the 7th and 10th Amendments are to be reinvigorated, Congress will have to take specific and strong action to enable Americans to opt out of forced arbitration clauses in consumer and employment contracts.

Last week, I posted on the interview of Rep. John Duncan, conservative Republican and trial lawyer by profession, by Christian broadcaster Terry Lowry on the What's Up radio show, which is broadcast on 12 stations in 10 states, thanks in part to co-sponsorship by the American Association of Justice. Terry Lowry has broadcast a number of other pro-7th Amendment interviews this month, as follows (with links to the audio files):

April 19: Interview with attorney Ryan Hodge of Hodge & Associates, LLC in Kansas, on the topics, "What do you do to a business that knowingly harms its customers, and is there a Biblical basis for our civil justice system?" Listen the Segment 1 here and Segment 2 here.

April 15: My interview on proposed federal legislation which would protect property owners from unfair eminent domain actions undertaken to promote private development. The legislation, The Private Property Rights Protection Act, would create a private right of action to enable property owners to sue municipalities. I posted about this bill on April 11 and on the paradox - hypocrisy, really - that Republicans who are fighting to limit civil suits against negligent health care providers for deadly medical errors suddenly want to enable property owners and their trial lawyers to file lawsuits to keep their homes. Listen to the interview here.

April 13: Interview with attorney Mary Alice McClarty of the McClarty Pope firm in Dallas, on the thousands of preventable medical errors every year and the need to enable the victims to hold health care providers accountable. Listen to Segment 1 here and to Segment 2 here.

April 12: Interview with Professor Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Independence Institute, on the unconstitutionality of H.R. 5, the proposed bill to limit health care-related lawsuits and shield providers from deadly medical errors. Professor Natelson, one of the most respected of all Tea Party-side Constitutional experts, wrote to the chairmen and ranking Democrats of two House committees with his judgment of the bill (download letter here), then posted his criticism on two major Tea Party websites, those of the Independence Institute and the Tenth Amendment Center, and I posted about it on April 5. Listen to Segment 1 of the interview here and to Segment 2 of the interview here. Professor Natelson's letter is the single most important opinion to date on the constitutionality of H.R. 5 and appears to be having an impact on the prospects for the bill.

April 8: Interview with Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, on the history of limits in Texas on medical malpractice lawsuits; whether medical review boards in Texas are sanctioning negligent doctors; and whether limits on medical malpractice lawsuits have had any impact on the quality and cost of health care. Listen to Segment 1 here, to Segment 2 here, and to Segment 3 here.

April 6: My interview on the real causes of deadly medical errors and doctors' shortages, especially in Texas, a subject of a post here on March 23. Listen to Segment 1 here and to Segment 2 here.

April 5: Interview with attorney Jere Beasley of the Beasley Allen firm of Montgomery, Alabama, on the nine deaths in Alabama hospitals occurring after receiving contaminated intravenous supplements, another example of the dangers of shielding health care providers from immunity. Listen to the interview here.

April 4: Interview with attorney Rob Sachs of Shrager, Spivey & Sachs in Philadelphia, on the sad reality that incidents of abuse and neglect in nursing homes continue to rise. More than 30 percent of seniors living in nursing homes or assisted living facilities have reported abuse. But only 20 percent of abuse incidents reported. Listen to Segment 1 here and to Segment 2 here.

Here are the radio stations on which you can listen to the "What's Up" radio program on weekdays and the broadcast times (Eastern time):

KKHT-FM 100.7 (Houston)
2:00-3:00 pm - also webcast from KKHT's website

KLNG-AM 1560 (Omaha, NE)
11:30 am-12:00 noon

KCNW-AM 1380 (Kansas City, MO)
4:00-4:30 pm

WLMR-AM 1450 (Chattanooga, TN)
12:00-12:30 pm

WBXR-AM 1140 (Huntsville, AL)
9:30-10:00 am

WWNL-AM 1080 (Pittsburgh, PA)
3:30-4:00 pm

WBRI-AM 1500 (Indianapolis, IN)
6:00-6:30 pm

WYYC-AM 1250 (York/Harrisburg/Lancaster, PA)
5:30-6:00 am

WSKY-AM 1230 (Asheville, NC)
6:30-7:00 am

KXKS-AM 1190 (Albuquerque, NM)
5:30-6:00 pm

WIJD-AM 1270 (Mobile, AL)
8:30-9:00 pm

WNVY-AM 1070 (Pensacola, FL)
6:00-6:30 pm

On this website, I discuss the basis in Constitutional law for the civil litigation process and the right to a jury trial for civil suits. That right has practical and beneficial impacts, as described in an op-ed over the weekend in the Washington Post.

Gibson Vance, President of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), the largest trial lawyers' association in the world, wrote, How Our Cars Got Safer, summarizing how litigation against auto manufacturers is one reason for the drop in trafic deaths to the lowest level in over 60 years. "(W)ithout the civil justice system, gas tanks would still explode in rear-end collisions, seat belts and airbags would not be standard, and cars would roll over onto roofs that would be easily crushed." Mr. Vance cited as examples the famous Ford Pinto gas tank explosion case and a gruesome case in which a power window strangled a child.

Mr. Vance wrote his op-ed based on a detailed study conducted by AAJ of changes in auto safety as a result of civil litigation and the exercise of the 7th Amendment right to a civil jury trial. On a special page on the AAJ website, you can download AAJ's report, "Driven to Safety: How Litigation Spurred Auto Safety Innovations," and an interactive graphic showing you which car parts, now standard in every car, were forced upon the industry thanks to lawsuits (it's a pretty neat graphic). From door latches to the tires to electronic stability control, many of the most important safety features of your car were installed after civil suits won by Americans with the help of their trial lawyers.

AND - that's not the only consumer product positively impacted by civil suits. AAJ also has conducted studies of the impact of civil litigation on toys used by our children and on the treatment of our elderly relatives and friends by nursing homes (each with neat and educational interactive graphics). As Mr. Vance wrote in his op-ed, "History shows that litigation and the civil justice system have served as the most consistent and powerful forces in heightening safety standards, revealing previously concealed defects and regulatory weaknesses and deterring manufacturers from cutting corners on safety for the goal of greater profits."

Let your relatives and friends know about these studies and tell your Congressmen. Civil litigation is not only Constitutional, it saves lives too.

I have faith in the people - I have faith in the jury system. It's one of the most important elements of our freedom, and it was so recognized in the Constitution, was felt to be so important, it was specifically put into the Constitution in the 7th Amendment. And I'll tell you, it's a very dangerous thing to take away rights like that from the people... In fact, I can tell you, you have better regulation by juries than you have by federal government regulators - it's more effective.

Rep. John Duncan, Jr., Republican from Tennessee, said that on Monday when he was interviewed by Christian broadcaster Terry Lowry on the What's Up radio show, which is broadcast on 12 stations in 10 states, thanks in part to co-sponsorship by the American Association of Justice. I've met with Rep. Duncan several times this year, and his allegiance to Constitutional principles of limited government is clear and consistent. He enjoys discussing his career in Tennessee as a trial lawyer, and how he helped plaintiffs to exercise their 7th Amendment right to a civil jury trial. On "What's Up," he discussed this issue and the deterioration of states' rights over the past several decades and called for their rejuvenation.

Terry Lowry asked Rep. Duncan for his opinion of H.R. 5, the bill to severely limit civil suits against all health care-related businesses, including nursing homes and insurance companies. Rep. Duncan said it's a bad idea, and he discussed his faith in the jury system, in the people who sit on local juries, and explicitly in the 7th Amendment ("one of the most important elements of our freedom"). He decried the steady reduction in the steady number of jury trials in recent years, a topic on which I posted last year. And he reiterated what the Founding Fathers always knew, that local juries are more effective in controlling egregious behavior than any federal regulator.

UPDATE: You can download and listen to the entire interview with Rep. Duncan from the What's Up website (MP3 file).

Rep. Duncan is a true Constitutional conservative and patriot, and his constituents are blessed to have such a man represent them in Congress.