AMERICAN JOBS ACT, 26 MORE JOBS BILLS, & H.R. 2072 - THE REPUBLICAN POSITION?

President Obama's "American Jobs Act"  was not available this morning on Thomas, the Library of Congress'  web portal, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php. The inquiry did pull up 26 other bills tossed in the hoppers of the House and Senate. 

It looks like the most likely version of the Republican Jobs Plan will be Number 15 on this list, H.R. 2072.  That is because that's the bill being reported out of committee and placed on the Union Calendar.  Remember that President Obama gave his Jobs Speech on September 8th, and that's the same day the GOP got their bill on the Union Calendar.  Coincidence?  I think not! H.R. 2072 will have only a minor impact on jobs.  It is a bill to extend and fund the Import/Export Bank.  The theory is if we can ship more product overseas, we will have more jobs here.  A good idea, but the GOP needs to come up with more than this drop in the bucket.

Here's the list.

1.  H.R.11: Build America Bonds to Create Jobs Now Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Connolly, Gerald E. "Gerry" [VA-11] (introduced 2/10/2011)     
Cosponsors (17)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 2/10/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

2.  H.R.72: New Jobs for America Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Jackson Lee, Sheila [TX-18] (introduced 1/5/2011)
Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Education and the Workforce
Latest Major Action: 2/25/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.

3.  H.R.199: Protect America's Energy and Manufacturing Jobs Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Capito, Shelley Moore [WV-2] (introduced 1/6/2011)
Cosponsors (5)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 2/1/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

4.  H.R.516: Bring Jobs Back to America Act

Sponsor: Rep Wolf, Frank R. [VA-10] (introduced 1/26/2011)
Cosponsors (11)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Transportation and Infrastructure; House Financial Services; House Judiciary; House Ways and Means; House Science, Space, and Technology
Latest Major Action: 3/23/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade.

5.  H.R.750: Defending America's Affordable Energy and Jobs Act
Sponsor: Rep Walberg, Tim [MI-7] (introduced 2/16/2011)
Cosponsors (66)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 2/28/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

6.  H.R.800: Jobs Recovery by Ensuring a Legal American Workforce Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] (introduced 2/18/2011)
Cosponsors (29)
Committees: House Ways and Means; House Education and the Workforce; House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 2/28/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement.

7.  H.R.992: Building American Jobs Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Levin, Sander M. [MI-12] (introduced 3/10/2011)
Cosponsors (21)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 3/10/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

8.  H.R.1023: No More Excuses Energy Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Thornberry, Mac [TX-13] (introduced 3/10/2011)
Cosponsors (4)
Committees: House Natural Resources; House Ways and Means; House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 3/15/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

9.  H.R.1354: American Jobs Matter Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Murphy, Christopher S. [CT-5] (introduced 4/4/2011)
Cosponsors (8)
Committees: House Oversight and Government Reform; House Armed Services
Latest Major Action: 4/8/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform .

10.  H.R.1378: Fighting for American Jobs Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Visclosky, Peter J. [IN-1] (introduced 4/5/2011)
Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Oversight and Government Reform
Latest Major Action: 4/8/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management .

11.  H.R.1684: Keep American Jobs from Going Down the Drain Act

Sponsor: Rep Sutton, Betty [OH-13] (introduced 5/3/2011)     
Cosponsors (34)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Transportation and Infrastructure
Latest Major Action: 5/6/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy.

12.  H.R.1744: American Job Protection Act

Sponsor: Rep Boustany, Charles W., Jr. [LA-7] (introduced 5/5/2011)      Cosponsors (142)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 5/11/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

13.  H.R.1993: American Job Builders Tax Reform Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Herger, Wally [CA-2] (introduced 5/25/2011)     
Cosponsors (5)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 5/25/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

14.  H.R.2015: American Discoveries and American Jobs Commission Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] (introduced 5/26/2011)     
Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Science, Space, and Technology
Latest Major Action: 5/26/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

15.  H.R.2072: Securing American Jobs Through Exports Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Miller, Gary G. [CA-42] (introduced 6/1/2011)      Cosponsors (9)
Committees: House Financial Services
House Reports: 112-201
Latest Major Action: 9/8/2011 Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 129.

16.  H.R.2537: Jobs for Urban Sustainability and Training in America Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] (introduced 7/14/2011)     
Cosponsors (5)
Committees: House Ways and Means; House Transportation and Infrastructure; House Financial Services; House Education and the Workforce
Latest Major Action: 9/8/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.

17.  H.R.2544: Don't Default on America's Debts and Destroy American Jobs Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] (introduced 7/14/2011)     
Cosponsors (24)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 7/14/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

18.  H.R.2670: Jobs for Americans Act of 2011

Sponsor: Rep Brooks, Mo [AL-5] (introduced 7/27/2011)     
Cosponsors (6)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 8/25/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement.

19.  H.R.2828: Local Jobs for America Act

Sponsor: Rep Miller, George [CA-7] (introduced 8/26/2011)     
Cosponsors (2)
Committees: House Education and the Workforce
Latest Major Action: 8/26/2011 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

20.  S.20: American Job Protection Act

Sponsor: Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] (introduced 1/25/2011)     
Cosponsors (32)
Committees: Senate Finance
Latest Major Action: 1/25/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

21.  S.98: Creating American Jobs through Exports Act of 2011

Sponsor: Sen Portman, Rob [OH] (introduced 1/25/2011)     
Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Finance
Latest Major Action: 1/25/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

22.  S.228: Defending America's Affordable Energy and Jobs Act

Sponsor: Sen Barrasso, John [WY] (introduced 1/31/2011)     
Cosponsors (20)
Committees: Senate Environment and Public Works
Latest Major Action: 1/31/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

23.  S.642: Creating American Jobs Through Foreign Capital Investment Act

Sponsor: Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT] (introduced 3/17/2011)     
Cosponsors (None)
Committees: Senate Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 3/17/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

24.  S.1027: American Energy and Western Jobs Act

Sponsor: Sen Barrasso, John [WY] (introduced 5/19/2011)     
Cosponsors (4)
Committees: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Latest Major Action: 5/19/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

25.  S.1258: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2011

Sponsor: Sen Menendez, Robert [NJ] (introduced 6/22/2011)     
Cosponsors (10)
Committees: Senate Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 6/22/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

26.  S.1363: American Jobs Matter Act of 2011
Sponsor: Sen Rockefeller, John D., IV [WV] (introduced 7/13/2011)      Cosponsors (None)
Committees: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Latest Major Action: 7/13/2011 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

RAND PAUL & THE LOCHNER ERA

Rand Paul, Tea Party Republican Candidate for U.S. Senate

Rand Paul is the Tea Party candidate running as the Republican Candidate for the United States Senate in Kentucky. He is a young man with some very old thinking. Thinking which harkens back to the early 1900's and a time known as the Lochner Era.

Recently Rand Paul has said some whacky things. He would not have voted for the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960's. He thinks government has no business telling restaurant owners who they have to let into their restaurants.

Lester Maddox

That was basically the position of Lester Maddox who owned the Pickrick Cafeteria in Atlanta. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education and enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Maddox closed the restaurant after being ordered to desegregate by a court. Maddox thought it was his prerogative to say who could and couldn't come into his restaurant. Maddox, known for repelling African-American customers with pick axe handles and by brandishing a pistol, went on to become Georgia's Governor.

Rand says he wouldn't vote to repeal the decision. He just thinks that the property rights of the restaurant owners have been unfairly impinged upon by the courts and the Congress. Buttressing his argument, Rand extends this thinking to include the burden placed on restaurant owners, and other businesses, who now must comply with an increasing number of laws banning smoking in public places.

Rand is confusing his applesauce with his chicken manure. Rand erroneously thinks that property rights are on an equal plane with civil rights. That was the thinking espoused by an Activist Conservative Supreme Court during the Lochner Era.

In Lochner v. New York, Lochner had been convicted of a New York law which prohibited bakery employees from working more than 10 hours a day or 20 hours a week.

Associate Justice Rufus Peckham

Associate Justice Rufus Peckham delivered the opinion of the Court. He found that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause protected Lochner's liberty to contract. This is an example of Substantive Due Process used to enforce property rights over Police Powers of the States. This errant judicial theory was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court.

Associate Justice John M. Harlan, I

A dissent by Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan, I was joined by Associate Justices White and Day. He rejected the majority's opinion that the right to contract was an unfettered right. He said "I take it to be firmly established that what is called the liberty of contract may, within certain limits, be subjected to regulations designed and calculated to promote the general welfare or to guard the public health, the public morals or the public safety."

Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes also wrote a dissenting opinion in which said that economic theories are not embodied in the Constitution. He said "[a] constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and even shocking ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States."

Rand Paul's thinking coincides with the thinking of Rufus Peckham and the Activist Conservative Supreme Court which enforced a radical theory of Substantive Due Process. They struck down statutes forbidding Yellow Dog Contracts (agreements where the employee promises not to join a union) in Coppage v Kansas, (1905). Then they struck down Minimum Wage Laws in Adkins v. Children's Hospital, (1923).

Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts

In Nebbia v. New York, The Court's opinion was delivered by Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts. There was one concurring opinion and no dissent. The opinon said "The Constitution does not guarantee the unrestricted privilege to engage in a business or to conduct it as one pleases. Certain kinds of business may be prohibited; and the right to conduct a business, or to pursue a calling, may be conditioned. Regulation of a business to prevent waste of the state's resources may be justified. And statutes prescribing the terms upon which those conducting certain businesses may contract, or imposing terms if they do enter into agreements, are within the state's competency"

Associate Justice Harlan Fiske Stone

Civil rights litigation is premised on the famous Footnote Four of United States v. Carolene Products. Justice Harlan Fisk Stone laid the foundation for levels of judicial scrutiny with a preliminary analysis of fundamental rights and suspect classifications. That footnote reads:

"There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth…

It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation, is to be subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment than are most other types of legislation.

Nor need we inquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed at particular religious … or national … or racial minorities …: whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry"

If Rand Paul would have his way then the States' Police Powers would be diminished, environmental laws mangled, minimum wage and worker safety laws would be threatened, to say nothing about the right to join a union. Rand Paul is a young mind trapped in the Lochner Era. We do not need to return to Conservative Judicial Activism and the likes of Associate Justice Rufus Peckham.