Feb. 29, 2024 - Epoch Times
13:16
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| In a surprise decision, a federal judge has just ruled in favor of the Attorney General of Texas, and in so doing, this judge opened a pathway for other states to be able to challenge the federal government in a serious way. | |
| Specifically, a federal judge has just ruled that the $1.7 trillion government funding bill that was passed back in December of 2022 was actually passed unconstitutionally. | |
| Although, to explain exactly why that is, as well as what it means for both Texas as well as the other states in the Union, I'll need to back up for a quick moment and give you the background on this particular case. | |
| To start with, according to Article 1, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution, both the House of Representatives as well as the U.S. Senate, they both need to have a quorum in order to conduct official business. | |
| Here's specifically what it says in the relevant part of the U.S. Constitution. | |
| Under Section 5, titled Powers and Duties of Congress, it reads, quote, Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business. | |
| In practical terms, this means that in order to conduct official government business, both the U.S. Senate as well as the House of Representatives, they need to have at least half of their members physically present at the Capitol. | |
| And this rule has been followed pretty much ever since its adoption 235 odd years ago. | |
| Since the very first session of Congress met all the way back in 1789, members of Congress have had to be physically present in order to vote. | |
| However, in May of 2020, this all changed. | |
| That was when Ms. | |
| Nancy Pelosi, who was at that time Speaker of the House, she implemented a new voting rule as a response to the pandemic. | |
| This new rule, it allowed members of the House to vote by proxy without being physically present. | |
| Quote, Mrs. | |
| Pelosi created the designated voter system during the pandemic, saying it would help keep the House running while lawmakers grappled with social distancing and health issues from COVID-19. | |
| lawmakers were allowed to designate another member to cast their vote for them. | |
| The result was many votes in which dozens of members voted despite being elsewhere, in some cases thousands of miles from Washington. | |
| And even though ostensibly, in theory, this rule was made in order to combat COVID, well, in practice, many members of Congress, they took this opportunity to travel, to campaign, as well as to just relax with their family, all the while still being able to vote on the House floor. | |
| Quote, Some members have capitalized on their ability to vote by proxy to hit the campaign trail. | |
| Democrat Karen Bass voted by proxy while engaged in her successful bid for Los Angeles mayor. | |
| Three Democrats who use proxy voting frequently in 2022, Reps Charlie Crist of Florida, Tom Suisi of New York, and Kai Kaheli of Hawaii, did so while running for governor of their respective states. | |
| In fact, it was perhaps this proxy voting setup which allowed Nancy Pelosi to be so effective even with such a narrow majority in the House. | |
| Quote, Who would have thought? | |
| Making a rule that goes directly against the plain text of the U.S. Constitution and the way it's been done for 235 years makes the job of being the leader of the House easier. | |
| Regardless, this whole proxy voting setup really came to a head when House Democrats were rushing to pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package through the House in December of 2022. | |
| That's because if you take a look at a timeline, you'll see the following. | |
| In November of 2022, you had the midterm elections, which saw the Republicans flipping enough seats to take back the House. | |
| However, even though the election took place in November of 2022, the actual change in seats wasn't going to happen until January of 2023, meaning that the Democrats in Congress, they knew that they had a very short window of time to push through anything that they hoped to get past the finish line before the Republicans would come in and take back the majority. they knew that they had a very short window of And as such, in December of 2022, Ms. Nancy, | |
| Nancy Pelosi rushed through the $1.7 trillion federal spending package, a bill that was so big and filled with so many little pet projects that it was literally about 4,000 pages long, about as thick as multiple phone books stacked one on top of the other. | |
| And despite the fact that there was likely not a single member of Congress that was able to read the whole thing, well, the bill was passed two days before Christmas, and eventually it was signed into law. | |
| However, because of the proxy voting rule that was still in place, the House actually did not have a majority of its members in the chamber at the time of that particular vote, likely because of the Christmas holidays. | |
| Here's in fact how the voting numbers broke down for that particular bill. | |
| Out of the 435 members of the House, 431 of them voted on the bill. | |
| However, out of those, only 205 were present to cast the vote in person. | |
| The other 226 were cast by proxy. | |
| Meaning that well over half of the chamber was absent at the time of the vote. | |
| Now, back then, you did have Republicans question the legality of doing it this way. | |
| For instance, Kevin McCarthy filed a lawsuit alleging that this whole practice was unconstitutional, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court decline to hear the case at all. | |
| Likewise, you had a Republican member of Congress from Texas, Mr. | |
| Chip Roy, challenge the validity of the federal spending vote. | |
| But that challenge went pretty much nowhere. | |
| In December of 2022, Congressman Chip Roy of Texas challenged the vote, wondering whether a quorum of half the members was present. | |
| Democrats who controlled the chamber shut down the inquiry, saying they considered the absent members to be present through their designated voters. | |
| Now, eventually, January came around, the Republicans took back the House, they scrapped the whole proxy voting setup, and the world moved on, seemingly forgetting how the text of the U.S. Constitution was ignored in order to pass the largest spending bill in American history. | |
| However, you fast forward to February of last year, of 2023, and that was when Mr. | |
| Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, he filed a lawsuit against the federal government contending that the $1.7 trillion spending package was passed unconstitutionally. | |
| To be specific, he was challenging a provision within that spending package, which he claimed put undue burdens on his state. | |
| Quote, This provision regarding | |
| pregnant women was one out of roughly 3,000 that could be found within the pages of that omnibus package if you were actually to take the time and look. | |
| Now, this lawsuit was filed in February of last year, and after pretty much a full year of legal back and forth, well, just yesterday, a federal judge ruled in favor of Mr. | |
| Ken Paxton, finding that the suspension of the quorum provision of the U.S. Constitution was, in fact, illegal. | |
| Now, the judge overseeing this particular case was Judge James Wesley Hendricks, appointed to the bench by President Trump. | |
| And here is what this judge wrote as a part of his 120-page ruling. | |
| Quote, Based on the quorum clause's text, original public meaning, and historical practice, the court concludes that the quorum clause bars the creation of a quorum by including non-present members participating by proxy. | |
| The House lacked the constitutionally required quorum but sought to evade the Constitution's limits by counting absent members as present in order to conduct business. | |
| The quorum clause prohibits Congress from doing so. | |
| Supreme Court president has long held that the quorum clause requires presence, and the clause's text distinguishes those absent members from the quorum and provides a mechanism for obtaining a physical quorum by compelling absent members to attend. | |
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| It's again PatriotMobile.com forward slash Roman or just call 972-PATRIOT. And as such, Judge Hendricks, he ruled that the spending bill was passed illegally since over half the members of Congress were not present on the House floor at the time of that particular vote. | |
| Now, as a practical matter, here is what this decision does. | |
| In regards to this case over in Texas, the two provisions in the bill that Mr. | |
| Ken Paxton was fighting have been ruled to be unenforceable. | |
| Quote, Judge Hendricks blocked the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act from being enforced against the state as an employer after finding the funding bill was wrongly passed. | |
| Meaning that in this particular case, since the state of Texas was, at the end of the day, only challenging those two provisions in the bill, it's only those two provisions which have been overturned. | |
| However, the much bigger implication here is what this means for all the other states in the union, which, just like Texas, might want to challenge other provisions of the $1.7 trillion omnibus package. | |
| Quote, Judge Hendricks concluded that the overall spending bill was enacted in violation of the Constitution, creating an opening for others to mount challenges to the ongoing spending. | |
| And the reason that other states might be able to use the same approach to question the constitutionality of the ongoing spending is because the 2024 federal spending bill was never passed. | |
| Instead, there were some extensions that were passed to continue funding the government for several months, with the most recent one, the most recent extension, about to expire in March with a potential government shutdown if the situation doesn't get resolved. | |
| That's all to say that there's a real argument to be made by the attorney generals of other states that many of the other provisions within the federal spending bill should be voided, given the fact that the underlying statute was passed unconstitutionally. | |
| And that, at least to me, is the most shocking aspect of this whole episode. | |
| That members of Congress, they can just make up rules, rules that go completely against the very plain text of the U.S. Constitution, and then they can use those rules to push through laws in this particular way, and then only about a year and a half later, does some judge over in Texas rule that the whole thing was illegal, but by that point, most of the money has already been distributed, it's been doled out, the programs have been funded, and it's not like American taxpayers are about to get a $1.7 trillion refund. | |
| Instead, maybe a few programs can get clawed back, but that's about it. | |
| It's amazing how it all works. | |
| If you or I break the law, we go to jail. | |
| But if politicians break the law, well, they can pass through their pet projects and use them to get re-elected. | |
| Regardless, circling back to this case over in Texas, after being handed a victory, well, Mr. | |
| Ken Paxton released a statement wherein he said the following. | |
| Quote, It is yet unclear whether the federal government will be appealing this decision. | |
| If you'd like to read the full 120-page ruling, I'll throw a link to it. | |
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