OCPAC e-mail - Ok's need for better Supreme ct justices & how constitutional is Oklahoma's federal delegation?

[Charlie Meadows]

Members and friends of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC)

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

++  WE NEED BETTER STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES!

++  JUST HOW CONSTITUTIONAL IS OKLAHOMA’S FEDERAL DELEGATION?

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 11th 2015, will be held at Olivet Baptist Church, 1201 Northwest 10th street in OKC. Our first speaker this Wednesday will be State Representative Kevin Calvey (R-OKC). Rep. Calvey has asked to explain his bill designed to reform our judicial nominating process. After our eligible voting members hear him out, we will offer a vote to those members to determine if we will officially endorse the legislation. I believe folks will see that this bill will clearly show a divide between conservatism and liberalism and as such it will likely be a candidate for this year’s Conservative Index (Please see related editorial further down in this e-mail). 

Our second speaker will be former California State Senator Ray Haynes (R-San Diego). Mr. Haynes is currently a lobbyist for the National Popular Vote effort. While I personally do NOT support this idea, one of the things we do at OCPAC is actually practice free speech. I was asked last year to allow this presentation to be made and we are going to do so now. By seeing an articulate presentation of the issue, our members will be better able to see what the proponents are trying to accomplish. 

I personally believe the only thing more dangerous to be considered during this legislative session dealing with federal issues is the drive to use Article V of the U.S. Constitution to call for another Constitutional Convention. Not only is this effort to call for a con-con a huge misdirected waste of time and energy, if the call was successful, given today’s demographic make up of America, the only thing that might have a chance of emerging from another Constitutional Convention would be a compromise between the conservative and liberal advocates. Can anyone give me an example of a time conservatives win more than we lose when we compromise with liberals? 

Let me be on the record, nothing, I repeat, nothing that would make a positive difference in America would ever have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting ratified if anything decent were to make it to the ratification process. 

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

*  MONDAY EVENING  -  NORMAN AREA  -  Trinity Baptist Church of Norman is hosting the seminar, Design, Deluge & Dilemma public meeting. The location is on the campus of Oklahoma University in the Jim Thorpe Building, 624 Asp Ave with the meeting starting at 7:00 pm. Dr Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International will show that real science actually supports the Bible. This meeting is primarily for athiests, agnostics, humanists and skeptics and as such every related professor on campus has been given a personal invitation to attend. Everyone is encouraged to bring their best questions to challenge Dr. Sarfati’s postitions.

*  TUESDAY EVENING  -  MOORE AREA  -  Please pay close attention. The banquet to honor the publishers of the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper has a location change. It is NOT going to be held at the Character Inn in downtown OKC, but rather the Western Sizzlin in Moore (Northwest corner of I-35 and 12 street exit). Since it is at the Western Sizzlin, there is no need for reservations, just come and order for yourselves and go to the meeting room. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. Ron and Steve deserve a lot of accolades for publishing one of the most unique newspapers in America over the past 35 years.  

*  WEDNESDAY  EVENING  -  EDMOND AREA  -  Being that it is Darwin’s anniversary on the 12th, it is important to bring competent speakers to Oklahoma to refute the fabricated foolishness of Darwin’s theories of evolution.  Therefore, this Wednesday evening February 11th, the Valid Worldview Club on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma will host Dr. Charles Jackson in the Radke Fine Arts Theatre at the Center for Transformative Learning. The meeting will begin at 6:30 pm. Dr. Jackson is a lifetime Mensa member as well as a member of the Creation Research Society. He is also the Points of Origins Coordinator at College Campuses with the Creation Truth Foundation. He has degrees in Biology, Science Education and Environmental Biology from George Mason University and a PHD in Science Education from the University of Virginia. The title of his talk will be: “Darwinian Evolution, Scientific or Non-Scientific? I sure hope some of those “courageous” evolutionists, humanists and skeptics come to challenge Dr. Jackson so we can see who’s arguments will stand the test of evidence and who’s arguments are little more than vanishing vapor. 

*  FRIDAY DAYTIME AND EVENING  -  OKC AREA  -  The popular Clouds Over America conference is going under the new name of the American Leadership Conference. It will be held in the beautifully remodeled auditorium on the campus of Christian Heritage Academy, 4400 SE 27th street in Del City, this Friday, February 13th. The conference will begin with registration at 8:00 am. and run until 6:15 pm. A free lunch will be provided from 12:15 until 1:15 pm. 

Then the annual OCPAC awards banquet will begin serving food from 6:30 to 7:20 pm. At that point we will return to the auditorium for the awards ceremony, already a good number of lawmakers are committed to attend as well as some of the freshmen to see their senior colleagues receive their awards. 

Following the awards presentations, we are in for a real treat as our good friend William (Bill) Federer from St. Louis will be our keynote speaker. Besides speaking nearly 400 times a year including radio and TV interviews, Bill has authored 15 or so books as well as produced numerous DVDs. Deadline for reservations is this Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. The cost to attend the banquet and awards ceremony is $23 for adults or $17 for students. Please make a check out to OCPAC Club along with the names of people attending and send to OCPAC, P.O. Box 2021, Edmond, Ok 73083. Or you can pay me at OCPAC during this Wednesday’s meeting.

For last minute reservation on Wednesday only, call (405) 348-9991.

*  PRAYER REQUEST  -  Long time OCPAC member Glenn Weeks went to the Heart Hospital a couple of weeks ago for double by-pass surgery. Unfortunately Glenn has contracted pneumonia and at 85 it is very serious. Glen is normally very active and even operates a small advertising and promotional business. His family would really appreciate our prayers for a complete healing. He is doing some better.      

++  NEEDING BETTER STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES!

Our State Supreme Court is packed with liberal justices and the judicial retention system is in-adequate to make those changes. That is why Rep. Kevin Calvey’s legislation to increase conservative influence and lessen liberalism on the court is so very important. Following is an editorial out of Saturday’s Edmond Sun newspaper titled: “A Judge who uses the Constitution on same-sex marriage”. The article is written by Harold Pease, a syndicated columnist and expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, visit www.libertyunderfire.org. Following is the editorial, the best I have seen on the homosexual marriage issue:

“In state after state the Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between a man and a woman was passed. Likewise, in state after state, since passage, non-elected federal appellate judges have ruled same-sex marriage to be constitutional, reversing the will of the majority - until now.

Finally, a justice is actually using the whole Constitution in his arguments.

Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court recently wrote that the U.S. Constitution gives no jurisdiction whatsoever to any branch of the federal government to dictate marriage policy to the states and is advising Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley to disallow county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to do so. 

In a hand-delivered letter to Gov. Robert Bentley Jan. 27, Justice Moore argued that “nothing in the United States Constitution grants the federal government the authority to redefine the institution of marriage” and that it decidedly trumps Alabama state law, more specifically the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment passed in 2006 by 81 percent of her voters. Moreover, “44 federal justices have imposed by judicial fiat same-sex marriages in 21 states of the Union, over-turning the express will of the people in those states.” This he called judicial tyranny, which he defined as “unlawful opinions issued without constitutional authority.”

He referred to the misuse of more recent interpretations of equal protection, due process, and full faith and credit concepts, as “specious pretexts” not part of the original document.

The press seldom consults the Constitution. Everything to them is simply liberal or conservative and Republican or Democrat.

But is Moore constitutionally sound? What does the Constitution say about marriage and can Gov. Bentley constitutionally refuse compliance with a judicial mandate?

When the Founding Fathers created the Constitution, they recognized two co-existing governments known as Federalism: one, the federal government, to function primarily externally, the other, the states, to manage internal functions.

Like a marriage they functioned - neither being master nor slave. Of the two, only the federal government was restricted in its functions by a list of 17 specific powers found in Article I, Section 8. The Founders knew that all national governments like to grow. The states were left unrestricted and all power not identified was assumed left to them and lesser governments.

To make doubly certain that this limitation on the federal government was permanent, the states insisted on having a Bill of Rights included in the Constitution as a condition of their acceptance of it. Amendment 10 of it reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution… are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Unfortunately for advocates of federalizing loving relationships the word marriage, or anything like unto it, is not in Section 8, nor has it been added to the Constitution by way of amendment through Article V, which is the process for change and thus this issue is devoid of federal constitutional authority. If we are to follow the Constitution as intended - and not make a mockery of it - marriage-related questions are state functions at best and cannot be moved to a federal jurisdiction without a 3/4th affirmative vote of the states as per Article V of the U.S. Constitution (I don’t know if this writer favors and Article V “convention”, but Article V is also the place in the Constitution that provides the method used for all previous amendments as those were initiated by congress). Alabama has every constitutional right not to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples.

Still, what about Amendment 14, passed after the Civil War to make the southern states apply the Bill of Rights to their freed black population - the amendment now almost exclusively used to justify same-sex marriages?

This amendment was about slavery, not marriage; homosexuality at the time was illegal in every state.

Two nebulous phrases in the wordy amendment, “due process” and “equal protection” were extracted later by judges, sometimes with tortured logic, and used to rule that a state may not deprive their same-sex couples of due process and equal protection of the law. Each nebulous phrase took on a life of its own with no regard to original intent.

If a judge uses only the distortions of Amendment 14, not introduced into the Constitution until after 1865, 78 years later and never understood by the amendment writers to justify radical change, he will use it to make same-sex marriage constitutional. To do so, however, he must intentionally ignore Article I, Section 8, and Amendment 10 and utterly discard the philosophy of federalism.

Such judges endorse the movement to grow the federal government, righting all wrongs and solving all problems through an ever-enlarging central government - just the opposite of what the Constitution is supposed to do.

Constitutional judges like Moore, on the other hand, value these essential components of the Constitution as understood by its Founders. His opponents take one sentence out of the whole, disregarding everything prior to 1865 and give it a meaning not understood at the time. So again, we finally have a judge who uses the whole Constitution in his interpretations.”

Folks, if America had a U.S. Supreme Court packed with justices like Roy Moore as well as if Oklahoma had justices like Moore, both America and Oklahoma would be far better places to live and enjoy liberties. The Supreme Court justices in Alabama are elected, not appointed like in Oklahoma. If reforms like Representative Calvey’s don’t work out, perhaps we need to return to elections for our Supremes much like we do for our district judges.    

++  JUST HOW CONSTITUTIONAL IS OKLAHOMA’S FEDERAL DELEGATION?

Four times during each 2 year congressional term, the New American Magazine, an affiliate of the John Birch Society, publishes a rating called the Freedom Index. This index differs from all others by such a novel idea of using only votes cast that have a Constitutional reference to them. 

Normally the index comes out 4 times each term with the final index coming out about a month before the general elections in November. For what ever reason, the final index just came out in the current February 2nd edition of the magazine and its findings are interesting.

For the U.S. House of Representatives, the final index score has, then Representative James Lankford scoring a perfect 100. Then freshmen congressmen, Rep. Jim Bridenstine scored a 90 and Rep. Markwayne Mullin scored a paltry 60. Then bringing up the rear, our 2 long time gubers, Tom Cole scored a surprisingly high 56% and Frank Lucas scored the lowest with only 50%.

Of course if we look at their lifetime averages we get a more accurate picture of who they really are as far as being Constitutionalists. For the 2 freshmen the lifetime average covers 40 votes, for Representative Lankford it covers 80 votes and for the solidly establishment Republican congressmen from Oklahoma it covers so many votes it make me shudder to look at such poor performance. Congressman Bridenstine is the most Constitutional with a lifetime average of 85%m followed by Mullin at 68%, then right on his heels was Congressman Lankford at 67%. Frank Lucas comes in at 50% and bringing up the rear is Tom Cole at 47%. For many reasons beyond this paltry score, I believe the establishment’s man, the slickster Tom Cole, is in my opinion the number 1 cancer on the Republican Party in Oklahoma.

Now for the Senate. Senator Inhofe had a current score of 88% and a lifetime of 88% which shows his solid consistency. Now former Senator Coburn had the current score of 86% and a lifetime score of 85%. Again these scores are very consistent and on a comparative basis, only Ted Cruz of Texas 90%, Rand Paul of Kentucky at 92% and Mike Lee of Utah at 95% are more conservative than Oklahoma’s Inhofe. I hope now Senator Lankford will govern closer to the Constitution than when he was in the House and I believe he will.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charlie...@gmail.com 

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