Text of PA HR 420 (2015)

PRINTER'S NO. 2016 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE RESOLUTION No. 420 Session of 2015 INTRODUCED BY KRIEGER, WARNER, RAPP, McGINNIS, METCALFE, MILLARD, SCHEMEL, JOZWIAK, TALLMAN, WARD, KAUFFMAN, TOPPER, BLOOM, GREINER, ZIMMERMAN, B. MILLER, SACCONE, FEE, GABLER AND EVERETT, JULY 6, 2015 REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY, JULY 6, 2015 A RESOLUTION Expressing grave concern over judicial activism and overreach and calling for renewed public debate on the role of the judiciary in a free and democratic society. WHEREAS, The American system of democratic government was established by the independent sovereign states, which upon adoption of the Constitution of the United States retained all sovereign powers not specifically delegated to the Federal Government; and WHEREAS, The Federal Government is comprised of three separate, independent and coequal branches; and WHEREAS, The legislative branch is charged with making all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated legislative powers of the Congress of the United States, as well as all other powers vested by the Constitution of the United States; and WHEREAS, The executive branch is charged with ensuring that the laws are faithfully executed; and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 WHEREAS, The judicial branch is charged with securing a steady, upright and impartial administration of the law; and WHEREAS, In The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton correctly described the proper and essential attributes of the judiciary when he said that it should "have neither force nor will, but merely judgment"; and WHEREAS, In The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton advocated for a strong Supreme Court but premised his view on the assumption that the Court would be bound by the plain meaning of the language of the Constitution; and WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States has increasingly departed from the express language of the Constitution in order that it not be constrained in its endeavor to create an ever-expanding world of implied constitutional rights; and WHEREAS, This often results in the corresponding finding of new limitations on the rights that are fundamental to our freedom and which are expressly set forth in the Constitution, such as the free exercise of religion; and WHEREAS, Departure from the plain language of the Constitution results in the Court's encroachment on the province of the legislature, which expresses the sovereign will of the people through the political process and the reserved powers of the states; and WHEREAS, From the very beginning, the United States has been exactly what its name suggests: a union of individual state governments, each with its own laws and public policy; and WHEREAS, When the founders laid out the system through which these states would come together and function as a Federal Government, they were careful to delineate which governmental 20150HR0420PN2016 - 2 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 powers were reserved for the Federal Government and which were the sole province of the states; and WHEREAS, Marriage law has historically been the province of state law in the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States has historically recognized this, stating as early as 1890 that "[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States"; and WHEREAS, The people of many of the sovereign states, including Pennsylvania, have expressed their will through the representative political process: that marriage be limited to one man and one woman; and WHEREAS, In 1996, the General Assembly passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which declared the strong and longstanding public policy of the Commonwealth that marriage be between one man and one woman and that marriage between persons of the same sex which was entered into in another state or foreign jurisdiction be void in this Commonwealth; and WHEREAS, A Federal judge in 2014 overturned the Pennsylvania law based on what he called the "bedrock constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection," which was on its face a new application of the Constitution to justify the creation of a new constitutional right; and WHEREAS, In spite of the clear public response to the issue as expressed by the people's elected representatives, same-sex marriage is established in 25 states, including Pennsylvania, as a result of judicial decisions rather than legislative decisions; and WHEREAS, In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a challenge to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act that 20150HR0420PN2016 - 3 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 limited Federal benefits to marriages between members of the opposite sex in a decision that emphasized the dominance of state law defining marriage and required the Federal Government to recognize marriages that were valid under state law; and WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States, in its 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, departed from both legal judgment and precedent and took the extraordinary step of constitutionalizing marriage and ordering every state not only to recognize marriages lawfully entered into in other states, but also to license same-sex marriages in their own states; and WHEREAS, In so holding, the Supreme Court has invalidated the marriage laws of more than half the states, removed the issue from the voters of the states where it has been since the founding and "ordered the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia"; and WHEREAS, The majority opinion elevates will over judgment and the personal views of the justices over the express language of the Constitution, in the process doing great damage to federalism and the doctrine of separation of powers; and WHEREAS, Chief Justice Roberts, in his dissenting opinion, said that those who founded our country "would not recognize the majority's conception of the judicial role" and that "they certainly would not have been satisfied by a system empowering judges to override policy judgments so long as they do so after "a quite extensive discussion"; and WHEREAS, Justice Scalia, in his dissenting opinion, called the action of the five person majority "a naked judicial claim to legislative–-indeed-super--legislative power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government . . . A system of government that makes the people subordinate to a 20150HR0420PN2016 - 4 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy"; and WHEREAS, Justice Alito, in his dissenting opinion, said: "Today's decision will also have a fundamental effect on this Court and its ability to uphold the rule of law. . . What it evidences is the deep and perhaps irremediable corruption of our legal culture's conception of constitutional interpretation"; and WHEREAS, Justice Thomas, in his dissenting opinion, said that in the Court's "haste to reach a desired result, the majority. . . distorts the principles on which this Nation was founded. Its decision will have inestimable consequences for our Constitution and our society"; and WHEREAS, President Abraham Lincoln recognized the grave danger we now face, stating in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, that "the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,. . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal"; therefore be it RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives believe that it is essential for the well-being of the people of this Commonwealth that we engage in an immediate public debate on the proper role of the judiciary in the formulation of public policy and the relationship of the judiciary to the will of the people of this Commonwealth as expressed through the formulation of laws by their representatives in the General Assembly. 20150HR0420PN2016 - 5 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29