Defunding ACORN is Unconstitutional!, page 1

Rachel MadCow needs to take a class on constitutional law. As I have while I was in law school in the course of attaining my Juris Doctor degree, let me explain the concept of a bill of attainder.

Here is a brief explanation of what a bill of attainder is as defined by the United States Supreme Court:

A “bill of attainder” is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without judicial trial and includes any legislative act which takes away the life, liberty or property of a particular named or easily ascertainable person or group of persons because legislature thinks them guilty of conduct which deserves punishment. Cummings v. Missouri, U.S.Mo.1866, 71 U.S. 277, 18 L.Ed. 356, 4 Wall. 277. See, also, Bauer v. Acheson, D.C.D.C.1952, 106 F.Supp. 445.

The Source is West Law that you cannot access without a subscription.

In plain language, a bill of attainder is a legislative action which seeks to affirmatively punish a particular individual or group in a way that deprives that individual or group of a trial.

As stated by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707 (1965)

the Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply-trial by legislature.

If the bill made it a crime to do business with ACORN, or if it required ACORN to surrender its offices to the federal government, or if it sought to make membership in ACORN illegal, then it would be unconstitutional. However, by merely making this organization ineligible for federal grant money, congress isn’t punishing ACORN because ACORN can keep doing what it does, it will just need to get private donations instead of our tax dollars.

Here, ACORN is not being punished, nor is anything that BELONGS to them being taken away. The Federal government has in essence decided to fire them. There is no constitutional guarantee to employment by the federal government. By MadCow's reasoning, anytime the Congress decided to stop funding a grant or an organization, it would be unconstitutional.

Another problem with MadCow's reasoning is that ACORN is not a government contractor. As they say on their own website, they are:

ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.

www.acorn.org...

They either apply for grants directly, or work with other entities that have gotten grant money to do a particular task in the furtherance of their stated goal. Its like applying for a grant to start a non-for-profit to teach inner-city kids better math skills.

KBR, Blackwater, Northrop, etc... are for profit corporations that the government hires to do a job to assist a branch of the government do its actual work. For example, there are companies that clean the port-o-potties at a temporary military facility, companies that provide food services at federal court houses, etc... Congress has no say in the contracting of these companies. Congress passes a budget for the president to spend on a particular task, and the executive branch uses the money in the budget to pay sub-contractors.

Grant recipients on the other hand are getting money directly from congressional grants, thus, congress has a say in who can get a grant.

I wish Rachel MadCow would just stay on Air America where no one listens to her in stead of MSNBC were no one watches her.

[edit on 29-9-2009 by finemanm]