As President Obama and his Democrats near completion of a health care bill that grabs over13% of the U.S. economy, it’s good to look back through the annals of big government power grabs and consider the saga of Joseph, Martin, Alex, and Aaron Schechter. The brothers may not be remembered or honored, but they should. They, as well as their sick chicken, freed the United States from the iron grip of FDR’s Mussolini-like control of the U.S. economy.

The Schechters ran afoul of FDR’s 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which grants congress power “to regulate commerce … among the several states,” Roosevelt sought to control prices, wages, and hours worked as well as mandate the right of workers to organize unions. A little New York City wholesale poultry business run by the Schechters undercut federal price controls and, according to the government’s 60-count indictment, sold unhealthy chickens in violation of the Live Poultry Code. There was a slight problem with the government’s case. The Schechter brothers bought and sold their chickens within the confines of the Empire State. Their clever lawyers argued, therefore, that neither FDR nor his rubberstamp congress had authority to regulate trade that did not cross state lines. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed.

In his 1935 majority opinion, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes intoned through his thick white mustache:

“We are of the opinion that the attempt through the provisions of the Code to fix the hours and wages of employees of defendants in their intrastate business was not a valid exercise of federal power.”

Justice Hughes reserved a few choice words in defense of the sick chicken in question:

“The same may be said of violations of the Code by intrastate transactions consisting of the sale ‘of an unfit chicken’ and of sales which were not in accord with the ordinances of the City of New York.”

With the bang of a gavel, the most draconian aspects of FDR’s New Deal were relegated to the ash heap of history in what became known as the “Sick Chicken Case.” Americans, the high court ruled, were not to be penned-in like, well, chickens.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis is said to have remarked to Roosevelt’s aids, “This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we’re not going to let this government centralize everything.”

Recently, when a reporter asked Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the Constitution granted congress authority to nationalize health care, it caught her off guard, “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner was equally befuddled, “I’m not a lawyer, and I’m certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but I think it’s wrong to mandate that the American people have to do anything,” We can only hope Boehner dedicates a little more grey matter to the weighty Constitutional question.

According to the Washington Times, when then First Lady Hillary Clinton tried to snare the nation’s health care system in 1994, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported:

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett told the Times:

“Where in the [Constitution] is the power to mandate that individuals buy health insurance?”

“The business of providing health insurance is now an entirely intrastate activity beyond the regulatory sway of the federal government.”

If congress passes ObamaCare, it may fall to the high court’s 5-4 conservative majority to rein in the Democrat’s unprecedented power grab. We can only hope that our nation’s majestic and emblematic Eagle is saved once again by a sick chicken.

– Mr. Curmudgeon