By Guest Writter Bill Sumruld

Living Constitutionalists claim that the Constitution implies Congress has the power to do things such as the “bail-outs” and “universal health care,” but actually they are stretching things quite a bit. They do this through the conflation of two different clauses (which they have misinterpreted).

These two clauses are found in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. Section 8 begins with a statement about Congress’ taxation power and then strings several clauses below that:

“Congress shall have the power… to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

This is commonly referred to as the Commerce Clause.

They conflate the Commerce Clause with the later clause commonly referred to as the Necessary and Proper Clause:

“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Living Constitutionalist attempt to apply these powers to jurisdiction of matters left by the Constitution in the hands of the states through the misapplication and misinterpretation of the following statement from Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:

“No State shall make or enforce any law that abridges the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without the due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That last phrase is how Living Constitutionalists argues the camel’s nose under the tent to get in all sorts of things. They interpret it to mean that federal law always overrules state law whenever Congress decides to rule on something.

The Commerce Clause combined with the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Equal Protection clause is how living Constitutionalists argue for the things they want and claim they are simply following the Constitution.

The truth is that this is all an extreme stretch for the “bail-out” and for “universal health care” among other things but they have been at this stretching so long that they have stretched things out of any original resemblance to the actual meaning of the Constitution. They simply use any words that seem to somehow relate to their subject and then pour the meaning they want into it. This turns out not to be real interpretation at all but only pretext. It mentions the words but fills them with a contrary intention.