Roman Around

Interviewing Senator Burris (D-Ill)

The problem with the Constitution, aside from it being a document of negative liberties, is that in order for it to be applied correctly to today’s ever-changing, ever-transforming America, it requires learned men and women to put it all in context for us. The Constitution, ever-breathing and ever-flexible, can only make sense if the most nuanced among continue to negotiate their way through the emanations and penumbras of its two-century old text and explain to the rest of us what it really means.

One may liken the Constitution to a mansion – or castle – with an abundance of secret passages and hidden rooms in which one may potentially find lots of hidden treasures. In those terms, one can begin to understand the basis of the liberal relationship with that document.

It lives.

Sometimes, however, mere interpretation isn’t enough. There are times when actual words are cited from the Constitution that, somehow, managed to elude over two-hundred years of scholarly review and casual perusal.

It’s convenient, not unlike finding a twenty-dollar bill outside of the Off-Track-Betting place.

Barack Obama’s Senate replacement in Illinois, Roland Burris, is apparently one of those men with the unusual talent to see things that aren’t there.

Not dead people, but words.

Burris must never have watched School House Rock with his children when he was a younger man. My guess is he’s probably not revisited the Constitution in many years.

Curiously, his version of the Preamble contains more words than the one I know.

Nicholas Ballasy, video reporter from CNS News, writes:

When asked by CNSNews.com what specific part of the Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individuals must purchase health insurance, Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) pointed to the part of the Constitution that he says authorizes the federal government “to provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.” In fact, the word “health” appears nowhere in the Constitution.

“Well, that’s under certainly the laws of the–protect the health, welfare of the country,” said Burris. “That’s under the Constitution. We’re not even dealing with any constitutionality here. Should we move in that direction? What does the Constitution say? To provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.”

Wait, it gets better.

James O’Connor, Burris’s communications director, later told CNSNews.com that although the word “health” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, the senator was referring to the Preamble of the Constitution which says the following:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Burris’s comment “indicates his belief that the term ‘general welfare’ can be interpreted to include the health and well-being of American citizens, and health care in general,” said O’Connor.

Under such an interpretation, the federal government would, thus, have the power to do whatever the hell it felt like doing in the name of promoting the “general welfare.”

First of all, the Preamble, in and of itself, carries no legal weight. It neither grants nor limits the power of the federal government. Rather, it exists to state the purpose of the document to follow. At the time of the Constitution’s creation, the Preamble was, quite literally, an afterthought.

But even if, in Senator Burris’ world of pliable interpretations and magical authorizations, the Constitution’s Preamble had substantive legal significance, the phrase “general welfare” does not mean that the federal government is obliged, either legally or morally, to provide healthcare to its citizens. It does not mean “welfare” in the sense that we have come to know it – namely, government entitlements.

Far from it.

It simply means that unless something applies to everyone, instead of to specific segments of the population or special interest groups (i.e., the uninsured), it is not within the federal government’s authority to involve itself. The term “general” means that it applies to the whole group, rather than individual subgroups.

It does the heart good to know that our elected officials are so in tune with the document they are there to “support and defend.”

(Yes, it is part of a Senator’s oath).

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