For Immediate Release: Monday, March 22, 2010

“Arizonans across the state have spoken, and the overwhelming message is that you do not want the health care bill that was passed last night,” US Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth said today.

“Devoted to your concerns, I have already pledged to do everything in my power to repeal a federal health care takeover by signing the ‘Repeal It!’ Pledge issued by the Club for Growth. I urge my opponent to do so as well.”

“From the onset, I have opposed a federal health care takeover. On my radio program, I regularly spoke with Arizonans about the disastrous effects the proposed, and now passed, health care legislation could have on Arizonans. As a broadcaster, my role was simply to engage in dialogue. As a U.S. Senator, I will be duty bound to act. Had I been serving in the U.S. Senate in December when the Senate voted on this bill, I would have done everything in my power to stop it. Unlike my opponent, I would have demanded the bill be read in its entirety, even though it would have meant keeping the Senate in session over Christmas.”

“The health care bill is estimated to cost Arizona taxpayers $4 billion in unfunded mandates, while making $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and massive reductions in Veterans’ health care. Furthermore, the legislation creates an avalanche of new agencies, rules and regulations that will vastly expand federal power over the most intimate aspects of each of our lives. It also contains unsustainable, unconstitutional and unaffordable mandates on the states and on individuals alike, including an unprecedented requirement that citizens buy private insurance policies.”

“I support legal challenges to the health care bill’s enforcement as well as legislative efforts toward its repeal.”

For Immediate Release: Monday, March 22, 2010

Tucson, AZ. Jesse Kelly releases the following statement in reaction to last night’s health care vote: “I am deeply disappointed that Representative Giffords has so blatantly voted against the majority of voters in her district. Her vote for a large, new federal health care entitlement will both increase deficit spending and restrict free market health care options available to residents of District 8. When I am in Congress, I will do everything in my power to reverse Obamacare and enact real free market solutions that truly increase competition and lower costs.”

Jesse supports market-based solutions to increase competition. He will work to legalize the purchase of insurance across state lines and permit groups of individuals to pool together to negotiate the terms of their insurance coverage. Moreover, he advocates tax policies that encourage individual ownership of insurance coverage and increased use of health care savings accounts.

Jesse also supports real tort reform that would lower the cost of malpractice coverage through a cap on punitive damages. Tort reform will also lower costs by lessening the practice of defensive medicine.

“Rep. Giffords chose party loyalty over the residents of her district. My pledge to repeal the government takeover of health care will be a central theme of my campaign from now until November,” stated Kelly.

Jesse Kelly is a Republican candidate for Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District in the southeastern region of the state. For more information on the Jesse Kelly campaign please visit VoteJesseKelly.com or send an e-mail to jesse@votejessekelly.com.

For Immediate Release: Monday, March 22, 2010

President Should Veto Federal Abortion Funding

FLAGSTAFF – Today, Dr. Paul Gosar called out President Obama for the unconstitutional Executive Order he used as a bargaining tool to persuade Democrats to vote for his national health care legislation.

“It is a disgrace when the President of the United States resorts to unconstitutional acts in order to pass legislation,” said Dr. Paul Gosar. “When his executive order is declared unconstitutional all Members of Congress who voted for nationalized health care, including Ann Kirpatrick, will have voted for federal funding of abortions. I am vehemently opposed to this legislation and the federal funding of abortions.”

Questions have started to surface whether the President can, by executive order, stop a lawfully authorized expenditure program enacted by Congress by an Executive Order. The most constitutional method for a President to strike a piece of legislation is by veto.

“President Obama should simply veto this provision if he truly does not want federal money to be used for abortions,” stated Dr. Paul Gosar.

BACKGROUND ON EXECUTIVE ORDERS

Executive Orders are temporary. The President can sign it today, and revoke it tomorrow. Indeed, upon taking office, President Obama revoked several executive orders signed by President Bush.

More importantly, Presidential Executive Orders have traditionally been used only in time of national emergency, such as President Lincoln’s executive orders shutting down certain newspapers and suspending the right of habeus corpus for prisoners. President Roosevelt used an Executive Order to intern over 100,000 Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Assuming Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt acted constitutionally (many question whether they did) where is the national emergency here? This is a simple domestic policy issue. There is no war from a foreign country and there is no civil war and there is no emergency. In this circumstance, Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution is concise: “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.”

So the question remains: Did Congressman Stupak and the other pro-live Democrats get duped? To be constitutional, Presidential Executive Orders have to be enacted pursuant to a provision of the Constitution or pursuant to a Congressional delegation of power, that is, from Congress to the President. Here, Obama’s Executive Order purports to contravene Congressional intent, not further it. Again, the method to stop legislation is by veto, not Executive Order.

The U.S. Supreme Court overruled President Truman’s use of the Executive Order (EO# 10340) in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952), whereby President Truman nationalized all the country’s steel mills because that order “made law” as opposed to acting pursuant to law. Here, if Congress authorizes federally paid abortions, how can an Executive Order constitutionally countermand that law? And if it can, why have Congress at all?