November 2018

Townhall.com
Have Federal Courts Become the ‘Tyrants’ our Founders Feared?
By Bob Barr

In many ways, President Donald Trump’s border fight is a battle on two fronts; one at the border with Mexico, and the other in the federal court system. Reports of violence against U.S. Border Agents at our southern border with Mexico should remind us that securing the border is a fundamental responsibility of the President. To at least some left-leaning federal judges, however, that responsibility is so unimportant that they have attempted to tie both of Trump’s arms behind his back as he tries to gain control of the chaos down south. It is fast reaching the point at which a fundamental decision must be made; one with profound consequences: who runs our country, the president or the unelected judges?

The spark igniting this constitutional fire may very well be upon us if President Trump closes the border with Mexico, in the face of an imminent threat of a horde of non-citizens pressing to cross into our country unlawfully, and keeps it shut down until Mexico deals with the problem on its side of the border. If a federal judge is then found who is more sympathetic to improving the quality of life for citizens of other countries than to reaffirming the authority of an American president to protect our constitutional Republic, and enjoins Trump from thus acting, we will have to confront the question that worried our Founding Fathers – are there any limits to what judges can decree?

As constitutional conservatives, our default position is, and should be, that we are a “nation of laws not of men”; a sentiment dating back to 1803’s Marbury v. Madison opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall. It is a position that protects citizens from unlawful conduct of government, and is the backbone to the system of checks and balances undergirded by the U.S. Constitution. This would seem especially relevant in the context of securing the border, an exercise which is the most basic element of sovereignty and national security.

But, with federal courts now reflexively inserting themselves into the day-to-day governance of our country, particularly directing their ire at this president, we as a nation have to answer the question of just how far judicial authority extends, and whether a president is allowed do anything without approval of the federal courts.

It would not be surprising, and certainly within Trump’s personality, to take the same tack as President Andrew Jackson did in 1832; defying a Supreme Court decision (also delivered by Marshall) with regard to the forced migration of Cherokee Indians from Georgia to Oklahoma (the “Trail of Tears”). Jackson is said to have grumbled, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” As we know, Jackson’s fateful (and inhumane) decision became a stain on American history’s; but it did pose the question of whether there is any practical limit to the power of the Supreme Court to stop a President from taking executive action.

The constitutional dilemma is of particular importance in today’s context given the rampant partisanship festering at the seams of all three branches of the federal government. Despite Chief Justice John Robert’s almost laughably naïve comments recently that there are no differences between judges appointed by different presidents, we are witnessing federal judges issue rulings (often now by way of injunctions) cutting closer and closer to the bone, of whether a president can do anything without risk of being cut off at the knees by liberal judges occupying lifetime-tenured positions.

The situation has become truly absurd. For example, whether a blowhard White House reporter is allowed to ask questions at a press briefing, is now grounds for judicial oversight. It is as if the president must play “Mother, May I” with the courts before taking any action, no matter how minor. This is not a sustainable way to govern any nation, much less the United States; nor is it in the true spirit of checks and balances as our Founding Fathers intended.

If a president cannot take steps to stop a “clear and present danger” at the nation’s border without judicial permission, then we have in effect reached the point at which unelected judges are truly running the country; dictating from the bench what a president can and cannot do to keep our nation safe.

It is one thing to argue that the Supreme Court ultimately must decide the constitutional validity of our laws — it should. However, it is quite another to posit that every presidential action has to be first reviewed and approved by the courts, even if it means permitting a mass of non-citizens to forcibly enter our country. If that occurs, we truly will have traded one English tyrant overseas for 3,200 here at home on the federal bench. And that is a scenario we cannot permit to occur.

Townhall.com
NOVEMBER 21, 2018

Have Republicans Been Hypnotized By “Red State-Blue State” Maps?

Bob Barr
11/21/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

In recent years, “Blue State/Red State” maps have become a ubiquitous, shorthand way to describe our political landscape.  Unfortunately, and much like how a carnival hypnotist employs a soothing and repetitive motion to transfix his victims into behaving absurdly, many Republican pundits appear to have become so mesmerized by seeing “Red States” as “Republican,” that they have failed to recognize — much less understand — the significant demographic and political changes that have taken hold within those state; changes that have rendered traditional notions of political analysis largely ineffective.

You do not have to be a high-paid political consultant to see this.

As I traveled the country for business and pleasure in recent years — visiting “Red States” like Texas, Iowa and Montana (including, of course, my home state of Georgia) — I saw (and continue to see) example and after example of state and local “Republican” officials respond to voters’ desires to improve their “safety” and “quality of life,” by increasing spending and services.

Even in traditionally Republican enclaves, voters are electing and re-electing officials who are eager to meet those desires, by raising taxes, “fees” and public debt, and by placing further controls on businesses. All this in an effort to satisfy largely suburban voters’ demands for everything from parks to aquatic centers and billion-dollar sports arenas.

This game plan becomes a habit that increasingly acclimates voters to view intrusive government at all levels, as benign.

In such an environment, it is only a small step for voters to choose candidates for office who are ever more willing to meet their desires for expanded and “improved” government services; in short, to vote Democratic.

Republican elected officials, their political consultants, and conservative media “talking heads” all seem to have lost sight of the forest for the trees; focusing on the “Big Picture,” and overlooking the erosion of conservative principles of governance where the rubber meets the road – at the local level.

While President Donald Trump has done more than any president since Ronald Reagan to reduce regulations at the federal level, on the ground in states across the country the Regulatory State is booming.  In states Red, Blue, and Purple, nominally Republican state and local officials continue to create new laws and regulations rather than erasing existing ones.

The result is a pronounced leftward drift in virtually all aspects of life at the local level. Taxes increase as Republicans acquiesce to multi-million-dollar bond initiatives for pet projects like sports stadiums and movie studios. Massive tax incentives are freely offered to companies in return for vague promises to create “high-paying jobs” down the road. Increasing business regulations, licensing requirements, and zoning restrictions make it harder for budding entrepreneurs to launch new businesses or expand current ones. Anti-smoking regulations and even gun-control measures are being shepherded by Republicans under the guise of “public safety” and “quality of life.”

With each such measure, Republicans cede ground; political territory growing difficult to regain. Most importantly, such behavior conditions voters to turn increasingly to state and local government to address and solve problems, rather than the private sector.

The impact of this philosophical shift cannot be dismissed, as seen clearly in this month’s high profile races in Georgia and Texas. That the GOP could very nearly lose a Senate race in Texas or a gubernatorial race in Georgia, should be a blaring wake-up call to Republicans that the electoral color of a state, or the letter next to a candidate’s name, no longer means what it used to mean; and certainly nothing that can be taken for granted.

The GOP now is so far behind the power curve, that reversing the trend – if even possible at this stage — will take a Herculean effort, over more than a single election cycle. That effort starts with messaging and ends with action consistent with that messaging; both are needed, but neither appears in ready supply among Republican leaders in Washington.

Deficit spending continues unabated. Meanwhile, little interest is shown by Republican leaders in Congress to move legislation that would appeal to minority and independent voters in particular, and which also are firmly rooted in traditional principles of conservative governance; this would include such measures as criminal justice reform and loosening federal restrictions on adult use of marijuana.

These and other steps should be easy wins for the GOP; but the process can only begin if the GOP removes the rose-colored glasses through which it sees the just-concluded mid-term election as a “victory” simply because the Party picked up a couple of seats in the Senate.

The problem for the Republican Party goes far deeper than a national coloring book with red and blue crayons.  If the Grand Old Party does not quickly and seriously work to reclaim and reinvigorate its philosophical high ground, there will be none left to claim.

Former GOP Congressman: Marijuana and the 2018 election — did we miss something?
By Bob Barr

FoxNews.com

Largely lost in the massive attention focused on the electoral results of 2018’s congressional voting, were the many ballot initiatives and state constitutional amendments on which votes were cast.  These ranged from victims’ rights to environmental issues and voting rights for ex-felons.  One of the more important of these issues, at least from a national policy perspective, were the half dozen ballot questions liberalizing state laws on marijuana.

The stars may now be aligning in such way that the federal government will either follow the states and relax marijuana possession laws, or at least formally back off and leave those states that have done so, alone.

As a result of the November 6 elections, 10 states and the District of Columbia now permit adult recreational use of marijuana.  This reality would have been virtually unimaginable less than two decades ago when I served in the House.  The trend toward legalization of adult toking, coupled with the change in the House majority from Republican to Democrat that will take place formally in two short months, significantly improves the chances that the federal government’s position – which still classifies marijuana as among the most dangerous of “controlled substances” – will actually soften.

The forced departure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions – long a foe of  relaxing any marijuana laws or policies, including its use for purely medicinal purposes — may provide the accelerant needed for such an event to ignite; especially since President Trump has spoken in favor of leaving the question of adult marijuana use up to the voters in the several states.

It now is apparent, at least at the state level – which is where principles of federalism place this issue – that voters deciding to relax laws against use of marijuana has become a winning issue; not everywhere, certainly, but in several states from east coast to west.

One of the more vocal anti-marijuana Members of the House, Texas Republican Pete Sessions, lost his reelection bid; and the question of marijuana legalization appears to have been a factor in his race.

For advocates of federalism (a group that included our Founding Fathers), this represents a welcome and long-overdue change. Decisions by state voters to relax marijuana laws constitute serious blows against the heavy-handed status quo that had reigned since 1970, when the federal government adopted the Controlled Substance Act and essentially trumped all state marijuana laws.

Technically of course, federal law still decrees it is unlawful for anyone to use, possess, grow, or sell marijuana; and so long as the federal CSA remains on the books unchanged, this will continue to hold true.  From a practical perspective, however, as an increasing number of states take the approach that personal use of marijuana by adults does not pose an existential threat to their citizenry, the federal government will find it increasingly difficult to justify prosecuting such activity.

This is where the Congress may step in, and at least indirectly support such state actions. Recent, and consistent national polling suggests strongly that if Congress does move to soften federal anti-marijuana laws, it would have the clear majority of citizens on its side.  A poll by the respected Pew Research Center conducted just last month, for example, revealed that some 62 percent of Americans support some degree of marijuana legalization.

Interestingly, one of the more vocal anti-marijuana Members of the House, Texas Republican Pete Sessions, lost his reelection bid; and the question of marijuana legalization appears to have been a factor in his race.  The impact of Sessions’ loss could be a major one, insofar as he chairs the important Rules Committee, and has employed the power of that post to block floor votes on actions that would protect states that have legalized adult use of marijuana from punitive federal action.

With the change in majority in the House, not only will Members with views more favorable toward states relaxing marijuana laws be chairing key committees, but bipartisan legislation that would protect states that legalize adult marijuana use from being penalized by Uncle Sam, may be afforded a vote. This legislation would be consistent with a rider that has, for the past four years, been attached to the Justice Department appropriations bill, and prohibits (despite strong efforts by Sessions to have it repealed) the Department from using any of its appropriated monies to prevent states from implementing laws allowing medical use of marijuana.

With so-called “Red States,” including Missouri and Oklahoma joining “Blue State” counterparts in leaving it to the voters to decide whether to relax state marijuana laws, and with the changes already set in motion in the House of Representatives and the Administration as a result of the mid-term elections, real change to federal marijuana policy may very well be in the wind.

Former Rep. Bob Barr was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia from 1995 to 2003. He now practices law and heads Liberty Strategies, a consulting firm in Atlanta.

OPINION: New 2A Dispute Pits The NRA Against Doctors
The Daily Caller
8:00 AM 11/15/2018 | OPINION
Bob Barr | Former Congressman (R-GA)

The latest gun control dust-up is not between the Bloomberg-funded “Everytown for Gun Safety” and the National Rifle Association; nor is it an argument between law enforcement groups on opposing sides of the issue.
The most recent and ongoing dispute between Second Amendment supporters and gun control advocates pits the NRA against doctors.

Shortly before the November 6 mid-term elections (from which candidates on both sides of the gun-control debate can claim victories), the NRA rebuked the American College of Physicians (ACP) for the organization’s continuing advocacy of gun-control legislation having nothing directly to do with the practice of medicine.

In response, physicians associated with the ACP, along with some doctors not directly related to that group, engaged the gun-rights association in a Twitter war. The battle centered on the question of whether physicians should use their platform as medical professionals to press for political policy changes rather than to improve doctors’ ability to treat victims of gun violence.

Physicians, just like members of any other profession, are certainly free to express their views on firearms-related issues or any other matter falling within the broad parameters of public policy. That some physicians have determined to do so as doctors – using the platforms available to them as doctors to advocate for gun control measures – is not a new phenomenon.

Almost a quarter century ago, in 1995, the “Annuals of Internal Medicine” (the flagship publication of the ACP) declared that “firearm violence” was a “public health imperative” that had reached “epidemic proportions” and therefore measures to limit access to firearms through legislation was an appropriate responsibility of physicians qua physicians.

The ACP has continued and even accelerated its drive to enact gun control legislation. In fact, its webpage highlights gun violence as among the most important issues with which it is concerned.

That webpage prominently displays a red icon labeled, “Firearms and Health”; it is the only “collection” of ACP publications to which visitors to the page are directed. A click on that icon will reveal to the visitor some 60 different publications on the topic.

The publications, which comprise ACP’s current and publicly available collection of gun control writings, include topics that are standard fare for gun control advocates: unfavorably comparing rates of firearm violence in America to other countries, the need for broader and stronger background checks, public opinion surveys supporting gun control measures, the gun show “loophole,” the dangers of having firearms in homes and more.

Recently, of course, the ACP has jumped on the bandwagon of those calling for a ban on so-called “3-D firearms.”
Beyond this compilation of the “usual suspects,” however, the ACP has positioned itself firmly on the far extreme of gun control, favoring measures such as the “prohibition of handgun ownership by private citizens.”

It has advocated also for measures that qualify it for derision, such as a federal ban on plastic (as in “toy”) guns.
It is such fringe advocacy that undercuts the credibility of the ACP, which is supposed to be an organization representing and assisting internal medicine doctors in their practices. But it was the group’s loose use of “studies” and other statistical “evidence” in support of its gun control advocacy, that recently caught the eye of the NRA.

The gun-rights organization blasted the ACP for deploying its physician-supported resources to press federal and state legislators for ever-increasing limitations on individual possession of firearms, based on faulty analysis.

The APC is not alone in using its resources to advocate for not connected to its core mission.  The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for decades tried, sometimes successfully, to interject itself into the gun control debate, by declaring that gun control is a matter within the organization’s jurisdiction over the control of diseases.
Republican-controlled Congresses have in recent years stopped the CDC from using taxpayer funds to involve itself in gun control efforts.

It is a virtual certainty, however, that the House, soon-to-be under Democrat Party control, will remove such prohibitory language in CDC’s appropriated funding. It is not clear that the Senate, which remains under GOP control, will go along with such a measure.

What is certain is that come January, Speaker Pelosi and her Democrat majority will be a far more receptive audience to extreme gun-control advocacy groups like the ACP; a situation that unfortunately will continue to blur the line between the practice of medicine and the practice of gun control.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003.

Democrats’ Revenge-Fueled Agenda Not a Recipe for Long-Term Success
Townhall.com

Bob Barr

In the immediate aftermath of last week’s mid-term elections, which saw the Democrats regain control of the House, many in the GOP fretted that this could portend a long-term trend, extending well beyond the 2020 cycle.  However, and notwithstanding the understandable disappointment in the Republican caucus at being demoted to minority status, the “agenda” being put forth by soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her band of extreme Liberals poised to chair important House committees, might actually be a silver lining to this dark cloud.

The Democratic Party’s “agenda” is, after all, no real agenda at all; unlike the last, truly historic mid-term election in 1994.

The 1994 election brought the first Republican House majority in four decades; in large measure because then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich and a small group of firebrand colleagues crafted and presented to the voters a real agenda.  The “Contract with America” described for the electorate 18 issues to be voted on within 100 days of the 104th Congress, if the voters gave the GOP a majority in the House. The voters responded positively, and the new Republican majority followed through on its part of the bargain; bringing such important matters as term limits and a balanced budget amendment to the floor for open votes.

That policy-driven agenda set the stage for historic action by the Republican majority in the House over the ensuing two-and-one-half years, leading in mid-1997 to a balanced federal budget for the first time since the 1960s.  All this and more was accomplished with a Congress controlled by the GOP and a Democrat in the White House.  And while factors relating to President Clinton’s impeachment in late 1998 derailed the ability of the two branches to continue working together on substantive matters such as those, for that brief, shining moment substance prevailed over partisanship in the Nation’s Capital.

Today, the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton – one willing to work with the GOP on substance – is no more.  Today’s Democratic Party wears partisan blinders so pronounced, that the only “agenda” it can see is wrecking vengeance on a Republican President who bested their candidate two years before.  The Party’s agenda now consists of nothing other than reflexive, incoherent hatred for Donald Trump.

In place of a substantive policy agenda with which to begin governing when the 116th Congress convenes next January, Pelosi and her angry minions have prepared a shopping list of more than 85 investigatory targets focused not on matters of substance or national importance, but on Donald Trump personally, his family and his associates. Promised investigations range from securing access to Trump’s tax returns, to inquiring into Ivanka Trump’s clothing business. Rather than moving forward with their version of a Contract with America, Democrats are pinning their entire hopes on a “Contract for Revenge”; intent on dragging the public through dozens of partisan investigations, scripted “outrage” soundbites, and hollow impeachment attempts.

Such strategy indicates Democrats have largely if not completely abandoned any hope of bipartisan cooperation, settling instead for passing a handful of symbolic bills, probably to include their go-to favorite, gun control, all designed as nothing more than fodder for the 2020 presidential election.  Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, otherwise a smart and crafty politician, appears by his silence to be giving the green light to Pelosi’s and Maxine Waters’ scorched-earth strategy in the House.   Apparently, Schumer and his Senate colleagues still fail to realize how much their over-the-top performance during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings cost them in the just-concluded Senate contests.

The opportunity being handed the Republicans in the House by the Democratic Party’s revenge-seeking investigative agenda, however, does not guarantee the GOP will be able to regain that majority in 2020; far from it.    If Republicans sit back, squabble, and simply hope that the Democrats will self-destruct, the status quo (which is, after all, the most powerful force in the universe) will likely keep the Democrats in power in two years.

If on the other hand, the GOP presents vigorous leadership in the House, with a consistent, positive and substantive agenda that can rekindle even some of the passion that drove voters to the polls a generation ago, they may very well find themselves poised to not only recapture the majority in two years, but lay the foundation for a lasting, conservative agenda to drive national policy for years to come.  In fact, House and Senate Republicans could even jump start that process by doing something other than licking their wounds in the upcoming Lame Duck session.