We The People Foundation
For Constitutional Education, Inc.
2458 Ridge Road, Queensbury NY, 12804
Phone: (518) 656-3578     Fax: (518) 656-9724 

 

Summary of the Pleadings  

We The People v. United States 

U.S.D.C. for the District of Columbia Case No. 04-01211

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Case No. 05-5395

 
On July 19, 2004, we filed the lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Columbia.  We The People Foundation, et al., v. United States, et al., Case No. 1:04-cv-01211. The case on appeal is 05-5395.

We The People is a case in which the Plaintiffs have asked the federal Court to do something that no court has done before, i.e., declare the meaning of the 1st Amendment’s Petition Clause, and whether it means the People have a Right to a Response to their Petitions to the government for Redress, and a Right to retain their money if the government ignores the Petitions.

The core issue in We The People is government accountability to the Constitution. The 1700 named Plaintiffs believe that any Right that is not enforceable is not a Right.

The question before the Court of Appeals is, “Whether government defendants are obligated under the Constitution to respond with specific, official answers to the questions put forth by Plaintiffs in their Petitions for Redress of Grievances and whether the People may retain their money without retaliation by the Defendants until their grievances are redressed.” In other words, were the founders correct when they stated that a legitimate, non-violent method for holding government accountable for violating the People’s individual, fundamental Rights, if and when the government refused to respond to proper Petitions for Redress of Grievances, was to retain their money until their grievances were redressed? [1]

All plaintiffs in We The People, except Robert Schulz , are represented by Mark Lane.

The complaint contains evidence of our repeated Petitions and of our repeated injuries including details of the on-going process of Petitioning the Government for Redress of specific constitutional torts, -- i.e., violations of the war powers, taxing, privacy and money and debt limiting clauses of the Constitution: a six-year process during which the government has refused to respond to the proper Petitions for Redress.

The ultimate underlying question in We The People is to declare the meaning and composite purpose of the First Amendment’s role in securing Liberty by holding government accountable through the practical exercise of the inter-related Speech, Assembly and Press First Amendment clauses, in conjunction with the “capstone” Petition Clause.

[1] “If money is wanted by Rulers who have in any manner oppressed the People, they may retain it until their grievances are redressed, and thus peaceably procure relief, without trusting to despised petitions or disturbing the public tranquility.” Continental Congress To Inhabitants of Quebec, an Act passed unanimously by the Congress. Journals of the Continental Congress.  Journals 1:105-113. “The privilege of giving or withholding our moneys is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shows how efficacious its intercession for redress of grievances and reestablishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator.” Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North, 1775. Papers 1:225.
 

THE ARGUMENTS             

We The People is an action for declaratory relief by constraining the defendants to meet their obligations under the Constitution by responding with specific, official answers to the reasonable questions put forth by Plaintiffs in their Petitions for Redress of Grievances, regarding constitutional torts involving violations of the U.S. Constitution’s war powers, taxing, money, and “privacy” and due process clauses.

The government moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that Congress has not authorized this manner of petition against the “sovereign” government, the government does not have to “listen or respond to Plaintiffs’ petitions”, Plaintiffs’ claims of retaliation are “legal conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations”, and Congress did not authorize People to enforce their Rights through the retention of money “as an avenue for the relief sought”

In our Opposition, we argued that the Petition Clause operates as a constitutional antidote to the doctrine of sovereign immunity , the enumeration of the Right to Petition in the First Amendment cannot be construed to deny Plaintiffs’ Right to a response – that is, the government is implicitly obligated under the Constitution to respond by providing specific answers, just as the government is implicitly obligated under the 26th Amendment to respond by counting the votes of people who have voted, that the issue of “Impermissible Retaliation” is a material issue of fact, and the Right of Petition does not depend upon Congress for its enforceability and survives the schema of any act of Congress that infringes or abridges its guarantees (such as the Anti-Injunction Act or the Tax Injunction Act.).

In Reply, the government raised new arguments: government’s response to Plaintiffs’ Petitions does not have to be “adequate”; the government has responded to Plaintiffs’ Petitions; and, Plaintiffs have no Right to enforce their Rights by retaining their money because “Plaintiffs can cite no case in which such a right is recognized…[and] history is replete with those who have sought to engage in civil disobedience by violating our nation’s tax laws.”

The government then argued that nothing in the Constitution requires the Government’s response be “adequate”, and that such a requirement could overwhelm government.

In our Sur-Reply, we argued as follows. Citizens have a constitutional right of access to the government, citing Bounds, 430 U.S. at 821. The access must be "adequate, effective, and meaningful" to comport with the Constitution. Bounds, 430 U.S. at 822. We also argued that while these principles may be easier to state than to apply because their textual footing in the Constitution is not clear, (see, Morrow v. Harwell, 768 F.2d 619, 623, 1985), the First Amendment right to petition, as currently interpreted, is a birthplace for the People’s right of access to the government (Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445, 1453 (3d Cir. 1995), and “The touchstone . . . is meaningful access ….” Bounds, at 823).

In our Sur-Reply, we also argued that if the Right to Petition the government for Redress of Grievances -- that is, the Right of access for the purposes of exercising self-government -- is to be “adequate, effective and meaningful,” the government must have an obligation to respond. We argued that no response or a non-responsive response would be inadequate. In reply to the government’s new “practical limitations” argument, Plaintiffs argued that a government that governs according to the dictates of the People and respecting the Rights thereof, would not be so overwhelmed by Petitions for Redress of Grievances regarding constitutional torts that the government would reach its practical limitations to respond adequately, effectively and meaningfully.

In our Sur-Reply we also argued that any Right that is not enforceable is not a Right and that repeated Petitions to government for Redress of Grievances that involve constitutional torts, that have gone unanswered, or that have been met with repeated injuries, can constitutionally be enforced by the People, by retaining their money until their grievances are Redressed, unless there is some other non-violent way to enforce their Rights. We asked the Court, rhetorically, “If the servant government assumes no obligation to protect and defend the unalienable Rights of the People, and after a long course of repeated usurpations and violations of the People’s Rights, upon what practical, effective and peaceful means might the People rely for Redress of their Grievances other than those expressly enumerated in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution?”

In our Sur-Reply we also argued that the absence of case law does not eviscerate the People’s Natural Right to rely on the protection of the Constitution in constraining the extra-judicial actions of the government. We argued that in reliance upon the express mandates of the First Amendment, we have taken the appropriate next step.  We argued that the Constitution cannot defend itself and that any fundamental Right that is not enforceable is not a Right and that by necessity, the compelling interests of the People must stand above the limited interests of the government.

There is much at stake for both sides in We The People v United States. The government asserts its authority to act without constitutional restraint or judicial review. It assumes the unilateral prerogative to interpret its own authority to act unchecked outside the limited powers delegated to it by the terms and conditions of the Constitution. The government argued that the American People, including individuals and minorities, have no means beyond the ballot box by which to enforce their Rights. 

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