Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 violates article I, section 7, clause 1 of the United States Constitution because it was a "Bill for raising Revenue'' that did not originate in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, in 2012, the Supreme Court narrowly and specifically upheld the individual mandate at the heart of ObamaCare under Congress' general taxing power. The Court specifically noted:

Even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax

on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply

with the other requirements in the Constitution.

Let me read that again, Mr. Speaker:

Even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax

on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply

with the other requirements in the Constitution.

In short, ObamaCare was upheld as a tax. The Supreme Court did not and has not yet considered a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's taxing provisions on the grounds that it violated the Origination Clause in the United States Constitution, and it most certainly did exactly that. The Origination Clause is found in article I, section VII of the Constitution, and it states:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House

of Representatives.

In creating ObamaCare, Senator Harry Reid took an entirely unrelated bill, H.R. 3590, containing just 714 words that did not raise taxes, and then stripped it of everything but its bill number. He then put the 400,000-word ObamaCare that raised taxes in 17 different places into its empty shell. Through this bit of legislative trickery, Mr. Reid claims that ObamaCare originated in the House, when, in fact, every last provision of ObamaCare, including the largest tax increase in American history, all came from the Senate.

This sort of procedure absolutely ignores and vacates the Founders' intent, and it renders the Origination Clause of our Constitution completely meaningless. If it is allowed to stand, the Origination Clause in the Constitution is a dead letter.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a small or marginal issue. The principle behind the Origination Clause was the moral justification for our entire War of Independence. Its importance was expressed through the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Stamp Act Congress, and the First Continental Congress, all of whom petitioned the Crown and the Parliament in England for redress of their tax grievances. It was with these realities in mind that the Origination Clause of our Constitution was written, and without it at the core of the Great Compromise of 1787, the 13 original States would have never agreed to ratify the Constitution.

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they knew it was vital for the power to raise and levy taxes to originate in the people's House, whose Members are closest to the electorate with 2-year terms, rather than in the Senate, whose members sit unchallenged for 6- year terms and who do not proportionally represent the American population and who already enjoy their own unique and separate Senate powers intentionally divided by the Framers between the two Chambers.

If we as Members of the House of Representatives, who took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution, including its Origination Clause, fail to assert this right and responsibility as the immediate Representatives of the people and those most accountable to them, we dishonor the Founders' memory, and we fundamentally abrogate our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

This fall, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear an appeal in the case of Sissel v. HHS as to whether ObamaCare violates the Origination Clause of the Constitution. I would urge my colleagues to sign on to H. Res. 153 and to join me in an amicus brief, along with currently 31 other Members of Congress, that I will be filing with the court. This brief expresses our collective conviction that the passage of ObamaCare was and is unconstitutional.

Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare was the largest tax increase in American history. The United States Supreme Court specifically and officially ruled it a tax. Consequently, under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the House and the Senate, in passing it in the manner that they did, categorically violated the Origination Clause, without which the U.S. Constitution never would have been born in the first place.

It is now the duty of the judiciary to strike down ObamaCare as a clear violation of the Origination Clause.

By following this amicus brief, we hope the judiciary will seize on the opportunity to support and defend the origination clause of the United States Constitution. If the judiciary does not strike down ObamaCare as an unconditional Senate-originated tax, Mr. Speaker, it would allow the Obama administration to blow yet another huge hole into the constitutional fabric of this noble Republic.

Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster once said:

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the

Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and

what has happened once in 6,000 years, may never happen

again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American

Constitution should fall, there will be anarchy throughout

the world.

U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to move to another subject.

Mr. Speaker, the greatest security threat in the world today is that of a nuclear-armed Iran. Now, Iran is once again the news of the moment. As talks between the United States and Iran have begun, American leaders given the charge to protect America's national security must not be charmed by wolves in sheep's clothing.

When innocent Syrian civilians were mercilessly attacked by chemical weapons, the Obama administration was caught on its heels in a foreign policy quandary. America was reminded again that the United States must always be vigilant and embrace an international relations framework which enables proactive engagement rather than merely reactionary, crisis response.

Mr. Speaker, I desperately hope that these discussions will proceed in the context of the grave reality the human family will face if nuclear weapons fall into the hands of jihadists in Iran.

To use the slightly altered words of our Secretary of State, Mr. Speaker: In a world of terrorists and extremists, we ignore these risks at our peril. We simply cannot afford to have nuclear weapons become the IED or car bomb of tomorrow. Neither our country, nor our conscience, can bear the costs of inaction.

Mr. Speaker, the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act is: an action that will reinforce the prohibition against illegal nuclear weapons development. We are talking about actions that will degrade Iran's capacity to use these weapons and ensure that they do not proliferate.

With this authorization, the President will simply have the power to make sure that the United States of America means what we say.

Now, Mr. Speaker, actually, the words I have just quoted are really just the essential words of Secretary Kerry's recent justification for wanting to attack Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria. However, I changed the quote a little bit, Mr. Speaker. Whenever he said ``Syria,'' I inserted ``Iran,'' and whenever he said ``chemical weapons,'' I inserted ``nuclear weapons,'' Mr. Speaker. If this line of reasoning of the administration chooses to stand behind this, then we simply cannot refute the parallel argument related to a nuclear Iran which poses an exponentially greater threat in terms of our security to the United States of America.

Secretary Kerry asserted that Mr. Obama ``means what he says.'' But, Mr. Speaker, if the world truly believed that this President means what he says, the chemical weapons crisis in Syria would never have occurred in the first place.

Secretary Kerry said of the Syrian crisis that North Korea and Iran were closely watching our actions. However, Mr. Speaker, the converse is actually

far more accurate: Syria has been closely watching Mr. Obama's inaction toward North Korea and Iran since he became President; and, consequently, Assad felt he could use chemical weapons on innocent men, women, and children with impunity. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the entire world now sees the U.S. under this President as all talk.

However, in this monumentally important issue of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, our critical diplomatic policies must be backed by our unmovable will to back them up by all means necessary.

The popular narrative of the Obama administration is to embrace Iran's openness and reward their willingness to negotiate, Mr. Speaker. But, Mr. Speaker, we know United Nations resolutions, IAEA declarations, and diplomatic efforts, including 10 rounds of negotiations toward this regime, have produced absolutely no fruit at all. Decades have passed without a single concession from this, the world's leading sponsor of terror.

In 2005, we saw North Korea, another rogue nation, petition for ``talks'' about ending their nuclear weapons program, and demanding U.S. concessions. How did they hold up that end of that bargain? They conducted three flagrant nuclear weapons tests. This, in spite of the fact that North Korea has been sanctioned, in terms of economic sanctions, into the virtual starvation of their people for now a half century.

Mr. Speaker, Iran is closer than ever before and racing toward a full nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian Government's intentions, actions, and capacity to develop nuclear weapons capability and sponsor international terrorism are terrifyingly clear. The time to regain our credibility with both our allies and foes alike in this region is now, before the situation devolves into a Syria-like situation, frantically searching for solutions after the crisis has already begun.

To that end, Mr. Speaker, I have introduced the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act, and I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill along with 25 other Members of Congress who are now signed on. The U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act will strengthen the United States negotiating position in the upcoming talks with Iran, and it will outline vital congressional priorities on any nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Mr. Speaker, a bad deal with Iran which does not definitively prevent a weapons-capable Iran is worse than no deal at all. I am afraid that is exactly where this administration may take us.

Mr. Speaker, we must not let it happen.

Whatever the cost is to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, it will pale in significance compared to the cost to our children and the entire human family of allowing the jihadist regime in Iran to gain nuclear weapons.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have a thought I would like to repeat.

Mr. Speaker, in 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States narrowly, but specifically, upheld the individual mandate at the heart of ObamaCare under Congress' general taxing power. The court noted specifically that ``even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply with other requirements in the Constitution.''

Mr. Speaker, I am going to read that one more time: ``Even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply with other requirements in the Constitution.''

In short, Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare was upheld as a tax. The Supreme Court did not, and has not yet, considered a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's taxing provisions on the grounds that it violated the origination clause in the United States Constitution. Mr. Speaker, it most certainly did exactly that.

Mr. Speaker, the origination clause is found in article I, section 7 of the Constitution, and it states:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House

of Representatives.

In creating ObamaCare, Senator Harry Reid took an entirely unrelated bill, H.R. 3590, containing just 714 words that did not raise taxes, and then he stripped it of everything but its bill number. He then put the 400,000-word ObamaCare that raised taxes in 17 different places into this empty shell bill.

Through this bit of legislative trickery, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Reid claims that ObamaCare originated in the House when, in fact, every last provision of ObamaCare, including the largest tax increase in American history, all came from the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, this sort of procedure absolutely ignores and vacates the Founders' intent, and it renders the origination clause of our Constitution completely meaningless. If it is allowed to stand, the origination clause in the Constitution is a dead letter, Mr. Speaker.

This is not a small or marginal issue. The principle behind the origination clause was the moral justification for our entire War of Independence. Its importance was expressed through the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Stamp Act Congress, and the First Continental Congress, all of which petitioned the Crown and Parliament in England for redress of their tax grievances.

It was with these realities in mind that the origination clause of our Constitution was written. Without it at the core of the great compromise of 1787, the 13 original States would never have agreed to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

It is not a small issue, Mr. Speaker. When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they knew it was vital for the power to raise and levy taxes to originate in the people's House whose Members are closest to the electorate with 2-year terms, rather than the Senate whose Members sit unchallenged for 6-year terms and who do not proportionately represent the American population and who already enjoy their own unique and separate Senate powers intentionally divided by the Framers between the two Chambers.

If we, as Members of the House of Representatives, who took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution, including its origination clause, fail to assert this right and this responsibility as immediate representatives of the people and those most accountable to them, Mr. Speaker, we dishonor the Founders' memory and we fundamentally abrogate our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.

Mr. Speaker, this fall the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear an appeal in the case of Sissel v. HHS as to whether ObamaCare violates the origination clause of the Constitution.

I would urge my colleagues to sign on to H. Res. 153 and to join me in an amicus brief that I will be filing with the court along with currently 31 other Members of Congress. This brief expresses our collective conviction that the passage of ObamaCare was and is unconstitutional.

Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare was the largest tax increase in the history of the United States of America. The United States Supreme Court specifically and officially ruled it a tax. Consequently, under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the House and the Senate in passing it in the manner that they did categorically violated the origination clause without which the U.S. Constitution never would have been born in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, it is now the duty of the judiciary to strike down ObamaCare as a clear violation of the origination clause.

By filing this amicus brief, we hope the judiciary will seize on the opportunity to support and defend the origination clause of this our United States Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, if the judiciary does not strike down ObamaCare as an unconstitutional Senate-originated tax, it would, Mr. Speaker, allow the Obama administration to blow yet another huge hole in the constitutional fabric of this noble Republic.

Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster said something that I think applies so profoundly here. He said:

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the

Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and

what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again.

Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution

should fall, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, we must defend this Constitution. We must as the House of

Representatives do our part to uphold those privileges and responsibilities we have been given by the Constitution, and I hope we do it, sir.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the United States loses several hundred of our greatest, those heroes of the Greatest Generation, every day. I speak of the World War II veterans whose valor, courage, and sacrifice stopped the evil shadow of the swastika from falling across the whole of humanity.

One of those heroes we lost recently was Gerard L. LaRoche, a World War II veteran of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Speaker. He was a Harvard-trained linguist who continued to serve his country after the war at the National Security Agency for many years.

Gerard went home to be with his savior on October 6. He was 93 years old.

Gerard was a Renaissance man. He was a translator, a language teacher, and a professor at several universities and colleges, a choral director, and a calligrapher. He was also a talented draftsman, Mr. Speaker, a violinist, a photographer, a recording engineer, and a furniture maker.

Gerard was born of French-Canadian parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1920, the oldest of eight children and the son of a noted calligrapher and schoolteacher who encouraged his artistic talents.

Mr. Speaker, in 1933, at age 13, Gerard entered the seminary of the Marist Order but left at 21 to study at Boston College, where he received his bachelor's degree and his master's.

He specialized in the study of romance languages, and then the outbreak of World War II came and interrupted his studies. He enlisted in the Army and served with the 2nd Armored Division, where he was at Normandy on D-Day Plus Six, and at the Battle of the Bulge. His ability to speak many forms of French soon landed him as an aide to help U.S. military brass communicate with the Belgians and the French. Through all this, he found time to make sketches of the villages, cities, and countryside in England and in Europe. He eventually continued his studies until he received his masters from Harvard in romance philology.

While stationed in the southwest of England, he met his future wife, his beloved Joyce Latchem, at a village dance just weeks before D-Day. They were married on October 18, 1947.

And now, Mr. Speaker, for a time at least, Gerard has left behind his best friend and loyal wife, Joyce; his daughter, Marianne; two sons, Jerome and David; six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. But they shall all meet again and gather together some day.

Mr. Speaker, Gerard LaRoche was a godly man, a devoted patriot and willing soldier, a committed husband, father, and friend. This national treasure will be missed, and we, his fellow Americans, are forever grateful to this noble champion of human freedom.

God bless Gerard.

ObamaCare Origination Clause

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to change subjects and talk about sometimes it is the water on the inside of a ship that sinks it rather than the water on the outside. Mr. Speaker, right now we have water on the inside of our ship because sometimes the Constitution itself is being ignored by this administration.

Mr. Speaker, in 2012, the Supreme Court narrowly and specifically upheld the individual mandate at the heart of ObamaCare under Congress's general taxing power. The Court noted specifically:

Even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax

on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply

with other requirements in the Constitution.

In short, Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare was upheld as a tax. The Supreme Court did not and has not yet considered a challenge to the Affordable Care Act's taxing provisions on the grounds that it violated the origination clause in the United States Constitution, and it most certainly did exactly that.

Mr. Speaker, the origination clause is found in article I, section 7, of the Constitution and states:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House

of Representatives.

In creating ObamaCare, Senator Harry Reid took an entirely unrelated bill, H.R. 3590 containing just 714 words that did not raise taxes, and then stripped it of everything but its bill number. He then put the 400,000-word ObamaCare that raised taxes in 17 different places in this empty-shell bill. Through this bit of legislative trickery, Mr. Reid claims that ObamaCare originated in the House, when in fact every last provision of ObamaCare, including the largest tax increase in American history, all came from the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, this sort of procedure absolutely ignores and vacates the Founders' intent, and it renders the origination clause of our Constitution completely meaningless. If it is allowed to stand, the origination clause in the Constitution is a dead letter.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a small or marginal issue. The principle behind the origination clause was the moral justification for our entire War of Independence. Its importance was expressed through the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Stamp Act of Congress, and the First Continental Congress, all of which petitioned the Crown and Parliament in England for redress of their tax grievances. It was with these realities in mind that the origination clause of our Constitution was written; and without it at the core of the Great Compromise of 1787, the 13 original States would never have agreed to ratify the Constitution.

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they knew it was vital for the power to raise and levy taxes to originate in the people's House, whose Members are closest to the electorate with 2-year terms, rather than the Senate, whose Members sit unchallenged for 6- year terms and do not proportionally represent the American population, and already enjoy their own unique and separate Senate powers intentionally divided by the Framers between the two Chambers.

If we as Members of Congress, who took a solemn oath to defend and protect the Constitution, including its origination clause, fail to assert this right and responsibility as the immediate representatives of the people and those most accountable to them, we dishonor the Founders' memory and fundamentally abrogate our sworn oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Mr. Speaker, this fall, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear an appeal in the case Sissel v. HHS as to whether ObamaCare violates the origination clause of the Constitution. I urge my colleagues to sign on to H. Res. 153 and to join me in an amicus brief that I will be filing with the court, along with 31 other Members of Congress currently, and this brief expresses our collective conviction that the passage of ObamaCare was and is unconstitutional.

Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare was the largest tax increase in American history. The United States Supreme Court specifically and officially ruled it a tax. Consequently, under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the House and the Senate in passing it in the manner they did categorically violated the origination clause without which the U.S. Constitution never would have been born in the first place.

It is now the duty of the judiciary to strike down ObamaCare as a clear violation of the origination clause. The failure to do so is an abrogation of their judicial oath to the Constitution and undermines their relevance as an institution.

It would also allow the Obama administration to blow yet another huge hole in the constitutional fabric of this noble Republic.

Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster said it this way:

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and the Republic

for which it stands, for miracles do not cluster, and what

has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again. So

hold on to the Constitution for if the American Constitution

should fall, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the court will take those words seriously; and I hope when they hear ObamaCare, they will do the right thing: they will simply read the origination clause and understand that if they let the President blow through this, if we walk away from this, we simply undermine our credibility and our oath and we render a critical part of the Constitution that was vital to this Republic ever coming into existence, we render that part of the Constitution, as I said earlier, a dead letter.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I guess it all comes down to making sure we understand as a people that the Constitution was put here to protect three basic rights: the right to live; the right to be free; and the right to own property. And, hopefully, that will allow us to pursue our dreams in the best way we know how; but none of those things can occur if our national security is significantly undermined or threatened; and, Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is today so let me shift gears one more time.

Security Threat of Nuclear Armed Iran

Mr. Speaker, the greatest security threat in the world today is that of a nuclear-armed Iran. And now, Iran is once again the news of the moment. As talks have begun between the United States and Iran, American leaders given the charge to protect America's national security must not be charmed by wolves in sheep's clothing.

When innocent civilians in Syria were mercilessly attacked by chemical weapons, the Obama administration was caught on its heels in a foreign policy quandary. America was reminded again that the United States must always be vigilant and embrace an international relations framework which enables proactive engagement rather than merely reactionary, crisis response.

I desperately hope these discussions will proceed in the context of the grave reality the human family will face if nuclear weapons fall into the hands of jihadists in Iran.

Mr. Speaker, to use the slightly altered words of our Secretary of State: in a world of terrorists and extremists, we ignore these risks at our peril. We simply cannot afford to have nuclear weapons become the IED or car bomb of tomorrow. Neither our country, nor our conscience can bear the cost of inaction. An action that will reinforce the prohibition against illegal nuclear weapons is an authorization of military force in Iran. We are talking about actions that will degrade Iran's capacity to use these weapons and ensure that they do not proliferate. With this authorization, the President will simply have the power to make sure the United States of America means what we say.

Now, I can't say actually unquote, Mr. Speaker, because those words were changed just slightly. Actually, these are indeed the essential words of Secretary Kerry's recent justification for attacking Bashar al Assad's regime. However, when he said ``Syria,'' I inserted ``Iran.'' And whenever he said ``chemical weapons,'' I inserted ``nuclear weapons.'' Mr. Speaker, if this is a line of reasoning the administration chooses to stand behind, then we simply cannot refute the parallel argument related to a nuclear Iran, which poses an exponential greater national security threat to the United States than chemical weapons in Syria.

Secretary Kerry asserted Mr. Obama ``means what he says.'' But, Mr. Speaker, if the world truly believed that this President means what he says, the chemical weapons crisis in Syria would never have occurred in the first place. Secretary Kerry said of the crisis in Syria that North Korea and Iran were closely watching our actions. Well, I don't disagree with him, Mr. Speaker, but the converse is actually far more true: Syria has been closely watching Mr. Obama's inaction toward North Korea and Iran since he became President. And, consequently, Assad felt he could use chemical weapons on innocent men, women, and children with impunity. The entire world now sees the U.S. under this President as all talk.

Mr. Speaker, our critical diplomatic policies must be backed by our unmovable will to back them up by all means necessary.

The popular concession this week is to embrace Iranian openness and regard their willingness to negotiate. But, Mr. Speaker, we know IAEA declarations have gone unanswered by this regime and diplomatic efforts, including 10 rounds of negotiations since 2011,

and they have borne no fruit. Decades have passed without a single concession coming from the world's leading sponsor of terror. In 2005, we saw North Korea, another rogue nation, petition for talks without ending their nuclear weapons program, and demanding U.S. concessions. How did they hold up their end of the bargain, Mr. Speaker? They have conducted three flagrant nuclear weapons tests. This, in spite of the fact that North Korea has been sanctioned virtually into starvation for nearly half a century.

Iran is closer than ever and racing toward a full nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian Government's intentions, actions, and capacity to develop nuclear weapons capability and sponsor international terrorism are terrifyingly clear. The time to regain our credibility with both our allies and foes alike in this region is now, before the situation devolves into a Syria-like situation, where we are frantically searching for solutions after the crisis has already begun.

To that end, I have introduced the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act. This act will strengthen the United States negotiating position in the upcoming talks with Iran. It will also outline congressional priorities in any nuclear negotiations with Iran. A bad deal with Iran which does not definitively prevent a nuclear weapons capable Iran is worse than no deal at all.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will just say this about a nuclear Iran. I understand that there are great challenges; but whatever the cost, whatever the cost to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran may be, it will pale in insignificance compared to the cost to our children and the entire human family of allowing the jihadist regime in Iran to gain nuclear weapons.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.