Archives for June 2014

June 30, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement reacting to the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Harris v. Quinn:

“The Court decided that the state of Illinois unconstitutionally placed home caregivers for people who received disability Medicaid payments into public employee union, and that the state should not deduct union dues from the payments those caregivers received. The Court did not take the broader step of overturning a previous decision — Abood v. Detroit Board of Education — that allowed public employee union dues to be deducted from all employee paychecks whether they consented to join the union or not.

“While we are disappointed that the Court failed to end the practice of forced public employee union conscription, the decision today ends the abhorrent practice of union allied politicians dictating that those caring for ‘the least of these’ have union dues deducted from their support checks.

“The unions provided no services for these caregivers, yet their avarice in gaining state sanctioned theft of taxpayer dollars dedicated to helping offset the costs of caring for those most seriously disabled is unconscionable.

“If these unions and their legislative henchmen would go so far as to take money from the disabled, can there be any doubt about their greed when it comes to stopping commonsense reforms and cuts that help cities and states balance budgets? Public employee unions should be ashamed that this issue ever came before the Supreme Court, and people with disabilities and their caregivers everywhere will hopefully be on notice that these public employee unions are their enemies.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (202)744-4427 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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June 26, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) and Americans for Limited President Nathan Mehrens today in a joint oped published at FoxNews.com praised the outcome of a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court overturning the 2012 false recess appointments by President Barack Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when Congress was not even in recess.

“With the question of when a recess occurs now settled, the NLRB will be forced to reevaluate decisions it made during the period for which it had no legal quorum. As a result, the Board will likely have less time over the next couple years to interfere in the workings of our economy, and this is a good thing,” wrote Scott and Mehrens in the oped.

The two called on Congress to act on legislation, The Protecting American Jobs Act, that would “move the adjudicatory functions of the NLRB to the U.S. courts and take away the Board’s power to prosecute unfair labor practices.”

As Scott and Mehrens explained, “The NLRB’s actions have been problematic for America’s job creators for too long. The Board, under the National Labor Relations Act, has the power to adjudicate ‘unfair labor practices,’ acting as a type of judiciary for handling issues between employers and labor unions.”

These quasi-judicial proceedings, the oped argues, allow the Board to facilitate the organization of labor unions at the expense of private employers, with the overreaching powers to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury against those companies.

Interview availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 202-744-4427 to arrange an interview with Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens on the Supreme Court’s ruling against the NLRB. Or, to arrange an interview with Rep. Austin Scott, please call 202-225-6531.

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June 26, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today hailed a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court overturning the 2012 false recess appointments by President Barack Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when Congress was not even in recess.

The Supreme Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had broadly overturned the decisions made by the illegitimate appointments because the “recess” appointments that had provided the Board its quorum were never constitutionally made.

“No president can imagine a Congressional recess into existence,” Mehrens said. “All of the acts of the unconstitutionally appointed NLRB back to the beginning of 2012 have been struck down. The Court was unanimous in upholding the Circuit Court of Appeals ruling vacating the unconstitutional decisions of the NLRB.”

According to the Circuit Court’s unanimous ruling which the Supreme Court affirmed, “Because none of the three appointments were valid, the Board lacked a quorum and its decision must be vacated,” upholding the 2010 New Process Steel 2010 case.

“This is a great victory for constitutional government and reaffirms the advice and consent process. Never again will a president be able to just say Congress is in recess whenever he wants. This outcome was predictable,” Mehrens concluded.

Attachments:

“Obama’s Extraconstitutional NLRB Appointments,” By Rick Manning, Vice President of Public Policy and Communications, Americans for Limited Government, Jan. 9, 2012 at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/01/obamas-extraconstitutional-nlrb-appointments/

“NLRB ‘recess’ appointments an egregious power grab,” By Robert Romano, Senior Editor, Americans for Limited Government, Jan. 6, 2012 at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/01/nlrb-recess-appointments-an-egregious-power-grab/

ALG Urges Passage of Bill Repealing NLRB Adjudicatory Powers in Light of Unconstitutional Appointments, Jan. 5, 2012 at http://getliberty.org/alg-urges-passage-of-bill-repealing-nlrb-adjudicatory-powers-in-light-of-unconstitutional-appointments/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 202-744-4427 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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June 19, 2014, Fairfax, Va. – Americans for Limited Government president Nathan Mehrens today issued a statement praising efforts by U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and eighty-four other lawmakers to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s radical new carbon regulation.

Duncan and eighty-four of his colleagues submitted a letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy demanding that her agency immediately rescind its “unwise and unconstitutional regulation.”

“Jeff Duncan and his allies in Congress are taking a stand for the bottom line of millions of American families – and standing firm against the increasingly radical agenda of a rogue, unaccountable and extra-legal bureaucracy,” Mehrens said. “This debate is simple: Is government going to protect the broad economic interests of all of its people? Or is it going to subject them to additional economic hardship by kowtowing to the overreaching, out-of-control enviro-radical agenda that’s taken over the EPA bureaucracy under the administration of Barack Obama?”

According to Duncan’s letter, “the authority to limit carbon emissions, even if that were actually a necessity, rests in neither the Constitution nor the Clean Air Act but in the true free market of individual choices made by the American people.”

“When Americans are free to dream and innovate – not coerced by regulators in Washington who will never have exclusive knowledge of science or the newest technologies – we believe they will always find cheaper, cleaner, safer, and more efficient ways to use and produce energy,” Duncan and his fellow lawmakers wrote.

Attachments:

Letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), June 12, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Duncan-Carbon-Emission-Letter-to-EPA.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (202)744-4427 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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June 18, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged the Senate to change the name of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The building was named after Georgian Democrat Senator Richard Russell, Jr. who Mehrens noted “filibustered civil rights legislation, actively supported segregation, and even co-authored the Southern Manifesto against the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.”

Mehrens was responding to a June 12 letter from Reid to Washington Redskins president Bruce Allen urging the team to change its name. In it Reid stated, “during my time in the United States Senate, I have worked to right many of the injustices endured by Americans throughout the country” and to that end that he would “not stand idly by while a professional sports team promotes a racial slur as a team name and disparages the American people.”

Keeping the name Russell Office Building, Mehrens wrote, after “an avowed racist, Democrat segregationist, stands as a symbol ‘of the injustices endured by Americans’ of African-American descent in the segregated South by racist Democrat administrations and legislatures.”

“What could be more disparaging to Americans of African-American descent?” Mehrens asked.

Mehrens proposed that the building be renamed the Hiram Rhodes Revels Senate Office Building. Revels was the first black senator elected after the Civil War, in 1870, and a Republican, for the state of Mississippi.

“Renaming the building after Revels, a suggestion first made by Washington, D.C.-based talk show host Chris Plante, could be the first of many recompenses Democrat leaders such as yourself might undertake, particularly considering the Party’s historic support of both slavery and segregation policies, to scrub the Capitol clean of its racist, Democrat history,” Mehrens explained.

“The Russell Senate Office Building remains a stain on the honorable institution that is the Senate. We urge you to consider renaming it with the same haste you have urged the Redskins to change their name,” the Mehrens letter to Reid concluded.

Attachments:

Letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens, June 18, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Reid-Redskins-Russell-Office-Building-Letter-6-18-14-npm.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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June 17, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement in favor of an amendment to the Transportation and HUD appropriations bill Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) plans to offer defunding implementation of the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule, which in October will empower the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to condition eligibility for community development block grants on redrawing zoning maps to achieve racial and income integration:

“We call on every member of the Senate to support Sen. Mike Lee’s amendment to defund HUD’s regime to rezone any municipality that accepts any part of the $3.5 billion a year in community development block grants from the federal government. The Obama administration is engaged in a utopian plan to create evenly distributed neighborhoods based on racial composition and income. It is social engineering at its worst, and a back-door attempt to gerrymander districts.

“It is also unconstitutional. Under principles of federalism, zoning is left up to states, counties and municipalities to determine for themselves. HUD has no place in drawing up neighborhoods based on racial preferences, particularly at a time when the Supreme Court has rejected racial quotas as unconstitutional. This will never withstand judicial scrutiny. Besides, the HUD rule will do nothing to stop real housing discrimination based on race that has been illegal since the 1960s.

“This attempt to nationalize our most basic living decisions must be stopped, and we thank Sen. Lee for championing this issue.  Americans for Limited Government strongly supports the Lee amendment to defund racial quotas in local zoning decisions.”

Attachments:

Proposed draft amendment to H.R. 4660, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), June 17, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/LeeAmendmentHUDTransportationApprops-6-17-14.pdf

“Senate must defund HUD racial housing quotas,” By Americans for Limited Government senior editor Robert Romano, June 16, 2014 at http://netrightdaily.com/2014/06/senate-must-defund-hud-racial-housing-quotas/

“House defunds HUD racial housing quotas,” Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens, Statement, June 10, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/house-defunds-hud-racial-housing-quotas/

Lee press release text, June 17, 2014 at http://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=05cdbb9c-c658-496e-b63d-c9acde1deff3 :

Lee to offer amendment to keep housing decisions in local hands

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Mike Lee announced his plans to offer an amendment that would block funding for a regulation that allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to dictate local zoning requirements in any community across the country.

“Even for our highly centralized federal government, this rule represents an extreme step in consolidating government decisions over distinctly local matters within the hands of distant, unaccountable bureaucrats,” said Lee. “Local authorities are far more attuned to the unique conditions and needs of their communities, and they have a personal stake in their success. In every state across the country, there is no doubt that a mayors and councilmen will be more personally invested and more effective in improving the lives of the people in their community than a federal official located in Washington, D.C.”

Senator Lee plans to offer his amendment to the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act should it be brought to the floor this week.

If funded, the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule would empower federal officials to assert the authority to force any community that receives a Community Development Block Grant to comply with zoning plans written in Washington.  This rule effectively allows HUD to carve up the country, block by block, according to its own priorities and preferences.

Community Development Block Grants are allocations of federal tax dollars, issued to local governments by HUD, to address a variety of community development needs. One of the primary uses of these resources is to provide affordable public housing for individuals and families in need. Sadly, the inevitable consequence of federal management over how local officials spend this money will only make it harder for communities to provide adequate low-cost housing for their neighbors in need.

To protect the ability of local officials to serve low-income communities, Senator Lee’s amendment would prevent this egregious power grab by the federal government and would keep housing decisions closest to the people who are affected by them.

Rep. Paul Gosar is the original sponsor of a similar amendment in the House, which was successfully added to H.R. 4745, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015.

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (202)744-4427 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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June 13, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement praising Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) for entering the race for House Majority Leader that will take place next week:

“Idaho Republican Raul Labrador’s entrance into the race for Majority Leader of the House of Representatives provides House Republicans with a unique opportunity to decide the direction they wish to take over the next six months.

“Republicans across the nation should be heartened by Labrador’s bold decision. A competitive battle of ideas between current Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and the Idaho congressman will hopefully invigorate the Conference, serving as the stimulus in the fight for limiting government.

“Americans for Limited Government praises Labrador’s decision to engage all House Republicans in a debate about the ideas that should direct them over the remainder of the 113^th Congress. The entire nation will hopefully benefit from this soul searching decision about who should be Majority Leader for the rest of the year.”

Attachments:

Rep. Labrador announced his decision saying, “Republicans need to address the growing challenges of immobility amongst the poor, insecurity in the middle class and stop protecting the special interests at the top. We must ensure every American has an equal opportunity to succeed, that they are treated fairly not only by the laws we pass in Congress, but by our political system. We must restore the proper role of government to create space for free markets and civil society to prosper and flourish. And we have to unify the country around the values we share, the ideas we all support, and solutions we can agree on. President Obama and the Democrats have had their chance and they have failed. Republicans must be willing to take these challenges head on with new leadership, fresh ideas, and a different approach. I am running for Majority Leader because I want to help create a vision of growth and opportunity for everyone and start getting to work for the American people.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (202)744-4427 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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