'Defund ACORN Act' may be unconstitutional

The Congressional Reasearch Service signals what some already knew. The GOP's Defund ACORN Act could be seen a Bill of Attainder, which is prohibited by something called the Constitution.

A bill of attainder — which is prohibited in Article 1 of the Constitution — is a law targeted to hurt or help an individual. If a bill is regarded primarily as punitive, instead of being strictly regulatory, it could be interpreted as an attainder bill, according to legal experts.

“While the Supreme Court has noted that the courts will generally defer to Congress as to the regulatory purpose of a statute absent clear proof of punitive intent, there appear to be potential issues raised with attempting to find a rational nonpunitive regulatory purpose for this legislation,” CRS legislative attorney Kenneth R. Thomas wrote in an executive summary of the 15-page analysis.

“Thus, it appears that a court may have a sufficient basis to overcome the presumption of constitutionality and find that it violates the prohibition against bills of attainder.”

Mitt Romney, Religious Bigot

I guess nobody ever read this to Mitt Romney:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Otherwise, it is almost unimaginable that he would say something like this:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

You would think that a man who aspires to the presidency of the United States would have taken a moment at some point to familiarize himself with its founding document.

The founders went out of their way to prohibit religious discrimination in American government, yet here is a Republican presidential candidate declaring that Muslims, being a minority in this country, need not apply for high-level jobs in a Romney administration.

As the Carpetbagger points out, hasn't Romney noticed that his quota system strikes rather close to home?

[T]he Muslim percentage of the U.S. population is similar to the Mormon percentage of the U.S. population. By Romney’s logic, wouldn’t he also support discrimination against members of his own faith?

I actually doubt that Romney had ever given a single thought as to whether he would appoint a Muslim to serve in his cabinet. The question very likely took him by surprise, and in that instant he calculated the answer least likely to get him in trouble with Republican primary voters. If he had answered "yes," he would have risked his primary opponents running ads suggesting that he was planning to appoint Osama bin Laden to run the NSA.

Even if he had responded with a vague "best person for the job" kind of answer, his opponents would have savaged him for not ruling out a Muslim in his cabinet. I mean, does anybody think Tom Tancredo wouldn't run an ad like that? It's sad to say it, but respect for the constitution is actually a disqualifying trait in the Republican Party today.

But in the end, we really should be able to expect better than this from candidates for high office. If you're not willing to put your candidacy at risk by opposing unlawful religious discrimination, you are not fit to serve.