Congress Becomes Madison’s “Overbearing Majority”

April 16, 2010 08:51


All too often, the road to the enactment of legislation has been fraught with corruption, stupidity, threats, bribes, and other sordid practices.

BY Jean Kaufman at The Weekly Standard

Congress has always had its flaws. All too often, the road to the enactment of legislation has been fraught with corruption, stupidity, threats, bribes, and other sordid practices.

But as bad as that is, what transpired during the passage of health care reform was different and even worse. The process by which this bill was passed didn’t just feature corruption and violate traditional ethics. It revealed a president and a congressional leadership that in concert have shown more callous contempt than any in history for the will of the American people, the safeguards against the tyranny of the majority built into the Constitution, and the parliamentary rules by which Congress operates. And there’s every indication that, if need be, the same will be true of cap and trade, immigration reform, or whatever else Obama, Pelosi, and Reid may deem the next morsel they plan to cram down the recalcitrant throat of the American public.

It is this stench of tyranny on the part of Congress that is very new and very noticeable, even to ordinary Americans who usually don’t pay a particle of attention to the arcane rules of the House and Senate. But they have been paying attention recently—although in his March 17 interview with Brett Baier, Obama glossed over that fact, and disturbingly claimed that he himself does not “worry” about those procedural rules. But as a lawyer not altogether unfamiliar with the Constitution, he must know that it is exactly those rules that are vital and instrumental in guaranteeing our liberties.

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