Reply #283: Bull puckey. It is not a meaningless clause, nor the equivalent of a "whereas" clause [View All]

[No Elephants]

in a contract.

Nothing in the rest of the Constitution supports your claim. It is not a wordy nor a flowery document, replete with meaningless phrases. Nor does anything in the rules of statutory construction support your claim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation

Those rules come to us from the common law of England, in the days of Queen Elizabeth I and earlier. So, there is no reason to assume the Framers--and many of the inhabitants of the colonies--were not aware of them when the Constitution was drafted.

If no part of a statute is presumed to be "mere surplusage," it is even less likely that any RESPONSIBLE court is going to hold that a phrase in the Constitution is mere "floweriness."

Of course, I can't speak for the Roberts Court, which I consider to be as disingenous, partisan and downright dishonest as any in the history of the U.S.