Federal court: The House unconstitutionally ‘passed’ the $1.2 trillion omnibus spending package

 If you wonder why Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was the subject of a ferocious effort to use lawfare to destroy him, the answer is that he’s effective. Indeed, he’s so effective that he may just have undone the entire Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (passed in 2022 under Nancy Pelosi), which set the U.S. on a path to spending $1.7 trillion dollars. When Merrick Garland tried to force Texas to abide by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was included in the spending bill, Paxton argued that Texas was not bound by it because the House violated the Constitution when it purported to pass the spending bill. A federal court agreed just agreed. I’m not sure how this unfolds from here, but it’s certainly a fascinating ruling.

According to Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, each branch of Congress needs a quorum, defined as a “Majority of each,” to do business. When the House, while still under Nancy Pelosi’s speakership in 2022, voted on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which put 12 annual appropriations bills in a single $1.7 trillion mega omnibus bill, fewer than half of the House’s members were physically present to vote. Of those who were absent from the House, many opted to vote by proxy.

However, according to a district court in the Northern District of Texas, the constitutionally-mandated quorum cannot be reached through proxies. Instead, a majority of House members must actually be present to cast a vote on a bill, especially a tax bill. The Court succinctly articulates both the problem and the principle in the introductory paragraph to the 120-page opinion:

For over 235 years, Congress understood the Constitution’s Quorum Clause to require a majority of members of the House or Senate to be physically present to constitute the necessary quorum to pass legislation. This rule prevents a minority of members from passing legislation that affects the entire nation. But despite the Constitution’s text and centuries of consistent practice, the House in 2020 created a rule that permitted non-present members to be included in the quorum count and vote by proxy. Pursuant to that novel rule, the House passed a new law included within the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, and that particular provision affects Texas. Like many constitutional challenges, Texas asserts that this provision is unenforceable against it because Congress violated the Constitution in passing the law. In response, the defendants claim, among other things, that this Court has no power to address the issue because it cannot look to extrinsic evidence to question whether a bill became law. But because the Court is interpreting and enforcing the Constitution—rather than second-guessing a vote count—the Court disagrees. The Court concludes that, by including members who were indisputably absent in the quorum count, the Act at issue passed in violation of the Constitution’s Quorum Clause.

Technically, Paxton raised the constitutionality issue solely as a defense to Garland’s insistence that Texas abide by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The court noted that Texas did not challenge the entire spending bill.

However, while it’s all well and good for the court to insist that its jurisdiction is limited to the single issue in front of it…it just held that the House violated the Constitution be pretending to have a quorum to conduct an official action when it didn’t!

No matter how you slice it, that means that the House’s conduct is void. It went through the motions of passing the bill, but it didn’t really pass the bill. And if the House didn’t really pass the bill, there is no bill. Given that all spending bills originate in the House, call me crazy, but I say that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 does not officially exist, and everything done under color of that alleged act…is illegal.

I’m not sure where this takes us. Since the money has already been spent, I suspect that the current House will do some fancy retroactive footwork. However, as a member of the taxpaying public, I want accountability for the fact that the 117th United States Congress committed a fraud on the American people.

Moreover, every congresscritter who participated in this fraud, from Nancy Pelosi on down, violated his or her oath of office. None should be allowed to walk away from that by saying, “Whatever. It’s done. The egg’s scrambled. Politics is a dirty business. Blah, blah, blah.” Something heinous happened here, and the American people deserve redress.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/federal_court_the_house_unconstitutionally_passed_the_12_trillion_omnibus_spending_package.html