The Congressman and the Secretary
Bill McGurn ·
April 28, 2012 at 8:12pm
My wife pointed me to this interesting to and fro between HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Congressman Trey Gowdy (R, SC). Mr. Gowdy is courteous but firm, and under his questioning Mrs. Sebelius discloses that she did not consult any Supreme Court ruling on religious liberty before handing down her mandate.
All in all, it's an incredibly embarrassing performance for a woman who served as a governor and whose husband is a federal magistrate judge. The video captures her irritation as well as her helplessness before some basic questions.
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
The lack of concern she shows for issues of constitutionality regarding the freedom of religion reflects the left's contempt for constitutional restraints and their zealotry for a 'control-freak' approach to government.
Remember Cong. Ritter's response at a California town hall gathering when he was asked about Obamacare's constitutionality, "I think the federal gov't can do pretty much anything it wants."
Edited on April 28, 2012 at 8:30pmMay '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
The US Constitution is shown disrespect in this Administration from the head to the tail...
Apr '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Go Trey Gowdy. It's a pity he ran out of time.
Jun '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
What we have with the Obama Administration is not so much an executive branch, as a cult of personality...or a cult of no personality (by my measure.) And it's no wonder that Obama doesn't like the Catholic Church. Obama doesn't like anyone beyond himself claiming infallibility of any kind. That's his role. Think Henry VIII.
May '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Based on the title, I really thought this post was going to be about something else.
Jun '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
As a lawyer, I give Congressman Gowdy an A+--that was a superb line of cross-examination. That's how it's supposed to be done.
May '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
I'm proud to call Trey my Congressman. He was an extremely effective prosecutor before Congress, so I'm not surprised to see him make mincemeat of a person who is (let's face it) a poseur. He's also very workmanlike and unassuming. We're fortunate to have him in the SC Fourth. Our prior Congressman, Bob Inglis, wouldn't have shown such guts.
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Great clip. Gowdy is absolutely right that strict scrutiny should apply. That's because federal regulations are subject to a special statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). At the state level, unfortunately, similar contraception mandates have been upheld, largely on the strength of the SCOTUS decision in Employment Division v Smith, an opinion authored, alas, by Scalia. There are some conservatives who agree with the Smith decision, but I view it as a blemish on Scalia's otherwise magnificent tenure on the Court.
Aug '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
<devil's advocate mode = on>
Do we want all cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off>
Jun '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
It's not surprising that he's a prosecutor. Beautiful line of questions. It would have been nice if he'd had another minute or two.
Misthiocracy: <devil's advocate mode = on>
Do wewantall cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off> · 4 minutes ago
You make a good point. Fewer would be better, but you would still expect that HHS would seriously examine the constitutionality of a rule like the mandate before publishing it. HHS has lots of attorneys. Frankly, I have the distinct impression that they are so arrogant they didn't even consider the legality of the rule.
May '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
I'm struck dumb at this spectacle of pure imbecility so richly larded with the purest contempt. How do ideological ignoramuses like this come to hold such power over others? Most distressing.
Aug '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy: <devil's advocate mode = on>
Do wewantall cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off> · 4 minutes ago
You make a good point. Fewer would be better, but you would still expect that HHS would seriously examine the constitutionality of a rule like the mandate before publishing it. HHS has lots of attorneys. Frankly, I have the distinct impression that they are so arrogant they didn't even consider the legality of the rule.
<devil's advocate mode = on>
Agreed, but we don't know that the secretary's office didn't "consider" it. We simply know that she was ill-equipped to competently answer questions of constitutional law...
<devil's advocate mode = off>
... which is why her staff really should of at least given her a quick briefing note or memo about the constitutional questions before sending her into the lion's den.
Watching her struggle to come up with an answer was like a scene out of Yes Minister, or The Thick of It, or Veep (episode 1 available free on YouTube!)
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Remember how much the media covered the grandstanding that followed the first hearing on religious liberty in the House? Every single newspaper, every single media outlet ran with the Democrats' "War on Women" theme asking "where are the women?" (Two women were on the panel but the Democrats walked out before they testified, by the way).
How much mainstream media coverage have you seen of this hearing?
Jul '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
What? Stick around for what the girls have to say? Not that crowd. They've turned hypocrisy into an energy source.
Apr '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Misthiocracy: <devil's advocate mode = on>
Do wewantall cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off> · 2 hours ago
We want cabinet members to be either skilled at their remit or skilled at delegation, including the part of delegation where you learn and understand the arguments between those you delegate too (this, too, can be delegated, but with the same proviso; eventually the buck has to get to you).
Jun '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Misthiocracy
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy: <devil's advocate mode = on>
Do wewantall cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off> · 4 minutes ago
You make a good point. Fewer would be better, but you would still expect that HHS would seriously examine the constitutionality of a rule like the mandate before publishing it. HHS has lots of attorneys. Frankly, I have the distinct impression that they are so arrogant they didn't even consider the legality of the rule.
<devil's advocate mode = on>
Agreed, but we don'tknowthat the secretary'sofficedidn't "consider" it. We simply know that she was ill-equipped to competently answer questions of constitutional law...
<devil's advocate mode = off>
Can't disagree. Intelligent bureaucrats can certainly be briefed to discuss the constitutionality of rules they are responsible for. "Ill equipped" is an understatement.
May '10
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Bravo! Bavissimo, Congressman Gowdy! May your tribe increase!
Misthiocracy: <devil's advocate mode = on>
Do wewantall cabinet members to be lawyers?
<devil's advocate mode = off> · 5 hours ago
I do that role, too. Yes, I DO want more lawyers....in the mold of Gowdy, not Holder, in the mold of Thomas, not Verrilli, etc. It is not the fact that they are lawyers that disqualifies them (though insert favorite lawyer joke here), it is that they have never mastered the Constitution and the art of critical, analytical thinking.
The problem with Obama and his minions is that they have taken incompetence and ignorance to an art form....and are proud of it.
Edited on April 29, 2012 at 5:19amMay '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Thanks to the language of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the myriad "shall be determined by the Secretary" contained in its text, the woman in this video is the most powerful person in America after the president. Watch and ask yourself if that's a good thing.
She is engaging in a ruthless power grab with no constitutional foundation, and when asked about the legal reasoning she went through to arrive at said power grab, she stammers and says, "I'm not a lawyer." For crying out loud, she doesn't even have a memo to support her complete neglect of the first amendment! A federal government that chokes business with EPA regulations, SEC filings, and Sarbanes Oxley requirements tells us they bypassed the 1st amendment with only gauzy "discussions" as their basis.
Congressman Gowdy gives a text-book example of how to respectfully and surgically cripple an opponent with logical questions. Just a joy to behold. He's my new favorite congressman -- after Paul Ryan of course.
May '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
Perhaps as devil's advocate, I will offer a defense of Smith. In explaining why he did not use the compelling interest test when prohibited conduct is central to a person's religion, Justice Scalia wrote, "What principle of law or logic can be brought to bear to contradict a believer's assertion that a particular act is 'central' to his personal faith? . . . As we reaffirmed only last Term,
[i]t is not within the judicial ken to question the centrality of particular beliefs or practices to a faith, or the validity of particular litigants' interpretation of those creeds." (citations omitted).
Picture this: a Christian community teaches that charitable work is central to the Christian religion, but the government says no, charitable work is actually peripheral. The scenario that appears to worry Justice Scalia is one in which a court attempts to decide the question.
May '11
Re: The Congressman and the Secretary
A further thought: the Court in Smith also said that "It would be true, we think (though no case of ours has involved the point), that a state would be 'prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]' if it sought to ban such acts or abstentions only when they are engaged in for religious reasons, or only because of the religious belief that they display." Later, in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, the Court struck down a Florida ordinance banning animal sacrifice precisely because it was not a neutral law but was in fact directed at the Santeria religion. So the Obama administration is going to be very careful to argue that their only concern is "women's health," and that the HHS mandate has nothing to do with targeting religious employers who oppose contraception.