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The Framers of
the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they
designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from
infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
-William J. Brennan, Jr. |
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Whose State is it?
Recently, we've seen attempts by Attorney General John Ashcroft to impose his own peculiar morality on our state. Unfortunately, he had the tacit cooperation of our own Senator. I say unfortunately, because this was a complete failure on the Senator's part to fulfill his oath of office.
A U.S. Senator takes this exact oath of office:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
There is nothing in the Constitution which gives the federal government any power over the practice of medicine. I recognize that people can have strong opinions over issues such as medical marijuana and assisted suicide, and I respect those opinions. However, a sitting U.S. Senator is, as the oath makes clear, required
to support and defend the Constitution.Since the Constitution gives the federal government no power to regulate the practice of medicine, we can look at the tenth amendment, which tells us what the Constitution requires when a power is not given to Washington, D.C.:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
When an officer of the Federal Government tries to exceed his or her authority under the Constitution, it is the job of a Senator to stop that encroachment.
I will take the oath of office seriously, and do the job the people of Oregon elected me to do, without reservation. A Senator's highest principle is that oath of office, and if anything else gets in the way, if any other personal principle precludes a person from fulfilling that oath, then that person is unfit to be a U.S. Senator.