President Barack Obama raised the idea that all Americans should be forced to vote in elections. He explained, “If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.” Obama called coerced voting “potentially transformative.”
There is one problem with implementing Obama’s idea: it is unconstitutional. The First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech encompasses the right to make a protected political statement by refusing to vote in an election. In fact, all ten Amendments of the Bill of Rights restrict government action not private sector action.
Obama’s inane comment was constitutionally protected but the government cannot implement forced voting because the First Amendment guarantees our right to freedom of speech, which includes our freedom to make political statements through non-participation in an election or just simple silence.
This is just one more example of Obama’s doctrine. Force people to vote when they may not want to participate in an election. Force people to buy health insurance policies they do not need. Force the owners of General Motors to give up ownership against their wishes. Force Christians to act against their faith. Force the University of Notre Dame to obey the pro-abortion Obamacare mandate. Force a group of Catholic nuns to obey the Obamacare birth control mandate.
Obama is not so much a constitutional scholar as he is a third world despot. If he cannot pass legislation through Congress, he signs an executive order, pretending it has the same force as law. Portions of the so-called Dream Act failed to pass Congress over a ten-year period. He signed an executive order violating current law in the process. In effect, Obama told Congress he didn’t care for Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested In a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Because Obama knows he cannot pass a treaty with Iran before the Senate, he decided to go around the Senate and attempt to agree to a non-binding, executive agreement that does not have the force of law. That’s what the letter signed by 47 senators was all about. Obama does not have the authority to enter into a nuclear treaty with Iran without consent of two-thirds of the Senate. In effect, Obama told the Senate he didn’t care for Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:
He [president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; . . .”
Taking this Treaty to the United Nations is an act of treachery against the Constitution and the American people. The United Nations does not have the authority, under U.S. law, to approve this treaty. By his action, Obama will have totally isolated Congress as a law making body and he will have accomplished this treachery with the willing cooperation of the Democrats.
As Elizabeth Price Foley, Professor of constitutional law at Florida International University College of Law wrote in a New York Times op-ed:
“When the president fails to execute a law as written, he not only erodes the separation of powers, he breeds disrespect for the rule of law and increases political polarization. The president’s own party — for example, the current Democrat-controlled Senate — will face intense pressure to elevate short-term, partisan victory over defending constitutional principles. If partisan preferences prevail, Congress will be unable, as an institution, to check presidential ambition and defend its lawmaking prerogative.
Once such precedent is established, damage to the constitutional architecture is permanent. The next president of a different party will face similar pressures and undo all the previous actions. He will initiate a new round of unilateral lawmaking, satisfying his own political base. The law will fluctuate back and forth, and our legislature will become little more than a rubber stamp for a single elected individual, which is not how representative government is supposed to work.”
I agree. This is not how representative government is supposed to work.