PIML 96061810 / Forwarded to Patriot Information Mailing List: [Good info in two messages form Jon Roland] PIML ================================================================== Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 19:04:43 -0700 From: jon.roland@the-spa.com (Jon Roland) Subject: HR 2270, HR 2727 The following message was sent to all members of the House of Representatives having an email address. You might want to support this with similar letters of your own. ============================================================================= This is to support two bills, HR 2270, which has no title, and HR 2727, the Congressional Responsibility Act. These bills need to be voted on before Congres adjourns for the election. I would, however, suggest some changes to HR 2270. First, it should have a title. I recommend "The Constitutional Authority Act of ____" Second, some definitions should be added to it. If asked to cite the constitutional authority for any given bill, the result is likely to be simply the "interstate commerce clause", interpreting "commerce among the states" as Everything and "regulate" as Plenary Power. To avoid this, the following definitions need to be added: Commerce among the states: Exchanges of goods or services for valuable consideration in which the exchange commences in one state and terminates in another. Regulate: Prescribe the timing, manner, packaging, measure, routing, labeling, purity, safety, and rate of an activity, and license the parties who may engage in such activity. Does not include total prohibition of the activity, or the power to impose criminal penalties for violation, but only the power to impose civil penalties. Third, we need a provision of some bill that prescribes that no agency of government may prohibit an activity by imposing a tax on it and then refusing to accept payment of the tax, or treat an article or activity as "illegal" because a tax on it has not been paid; and that no funds or article of commerce may be seized but on probable cause of delinquency in payment of a just debt to the government, and no funds or article of commerce may be forfeited except to satisfy a judgement against the owner for a specific debt, including a tax or fee. It should further prescribe that property obtained through criminal activity should be subject to forfeiture only for the benefit of the victims of such criminal activity, or, if such victims cannot be identified, to members of the class of victims of similar crimes. Fourth, we need a provision of some bill that prescribes that the jurisdiction of a criminal act is the jurisdiction in which the perpetrator's brain was located at the moment in which he initiated the chain of events which led to the effects of the crime. The Framers intended that criminal jurisdiction should be territorial, and that a crime is the act of the perpetrator and not the effects of his decision. --Jon Roland ======================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 20:55:28 -0700 From: jon.roland@the-spa.com (Jon Roland) Subject: A Better Balanced Budget Amendment The following message was sent to all members of the House of Representatives having an email address. You might want to support this with similar letters of your own. ============================================================================= This is to suggest a better wording for a Balanced Budget Amendment. Much of the opposition to the presently proposed amendment arises from the way it is worded, which is badly. The reason it is badly worded is an unavoidable consequence of the direct approach to the problem that is being taken. Remember, the objective of the amendment is to effect a change in congressional procedure, to forbid the proposal of unbalanced budgets unless overwritten by a supermajority. An amendment is needed because any rules of procedure which houses of Congress may adopt, by majority vote, may be suspended, amended, or repealed by a similar majority vote. The major problem of an amendment that specifically prescribes the national budget is that noncompliance includes not only the procedure but the result. A budget that turns out to be unbalanced becomes actionable, putting the budget under the jurisdiction of the courts, and the courts are ill-equipped to decide national budgets, besides it being unconstitutional for them to do that, under the structural principle of the separation of powers. No, the solution is to adopt an amendment which might read as follows: "Each House of Congress shall have the power to adopt Rules of Procedure, by a two-thirds vote of all members, which may not be suspended, amended, or repealed, but by a similar two-thirds vote of all members." After being ratified, the House of Representatives would then simple adopt a rule of procedure, by a two-thirds vote, that would prohibit proposing an unbalanced budget unless the rule was suspended by a two-thirds vote. An amendment worded in this way might pass and be ratified, and would avoid the shrotcomings of the presently worded proposed amendment. --Jon ======================================================================= Visit our Web site under its new domain name - http://constitution.org/ If you need help setting up your own Web site, call us at 916/927-4935. ======================================================================= * Patriot Information Mailing List * http://constitution.org/piml/piml.htm * A service to help inform those who have an active interest in * returning our federal and state governments to limited, * constitutional government * Send messages for consideration and possible posting to * butterb@sagenet.net (Bill Utterback). * To subscribe or unsubscribe, send message with subject line * "subscribe patriot" or "unsubscribe patriot" * Forwarded messages sent on this mailing list are NOT verified. * See World's Smallest Political Quiz: www.self-gov.org/quiz.html * Libertarian is to LIBERTY as librarian is to library (DePena) * PIML grants permission to copy and repost this message * in its entirety with headers and trailers left intact.