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RI Right to Life and 28 Legislators File Challenge to Chafee Executive Order
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
For immediate release:
December 1, 2011
For more information:
Barth E. Bracy, Executive Director
Office: (401) 521-1860 / Mobile: (401) 225-8646
RI Right to Life and 28 Legislators File Challenge to Chafee Executive Order
Providence, RI—The Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee (RIRTL) -- joined by 28 members of the Rhode Island General Assembly -- today filed a legal challenge to the September 19, 2011 executive order issued by Governor Lincoln Chafee, which purports to establish a Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange and board to govern it. In doing so, the executive order attempts to bypass the General Assembly and its members, which rejected legislation creating the Exchange in June.
The Rhode Island Senate passed a Health Benefits Exchange Act -- a key component of the national health care reform law -- this past April 5 on a vote of 31-6. Chafee and other powerful officials opposed the Act due to language that, consistent with longstanding state and federal law, prohibits government funds from being used to purchase health insurance plans that provide coverage for elective abortion. Subsequently, the Rhode Island House of Representatives failed to act on the Senate bill and failed even to act on its own version of the bill, which did not contain any abortion-funding prohibition.
Notably, the Senate and House versions of the Act both recognized, in their very first lines, that: “Statutory changes to Rhode Island law are necessary in order to establish an American health benefit exchange in Rhode Island and its administrative authority…” RIRTL agrees, and has retained constitutional lawyer Joseph S. Larisa, Jr., to challenge Chafee’s attempt to create an Exchange by executive order, despite the rejection by the General Assembly of legislation creating the Exchange. According to Attorney Larisa:
“It is a fundamental principle of both American and Rhode Island constitutional law that the legislature enacts the laws, the Governor executes the laws and the courts interpret the laws. The General Assembly considered and refused to adopt a health benefit exchange in June. Until this order, no other Governor has attempted to bypass the legislature and create a health care exchange unilaterally. Yet, the executive order we are challenging purports to comply with the federal health care law by giving the exchange extraordinary power to meet its requirements, including entering into contracts and receiving and spending tens of millions of dollars of government and private money. Its grant of both executive and legislative power absent legislation violates Rhode Island’s separation of powers constitutional mandate. It disenfranchises members of the General Assembly, each of whom has the constitutional right to vote on whether and how any exchange should be created. The question is not whether Rhode Island can create an exchange -- it most surely can -- the question is whether the Governor or the General Assembly possess the power to create this powerful State entity and determine its governance. The Constitution places that power squarely in the hands of the General Assembly.”
According to RIRTL Executive Director Barth E. Bracy, “The majority of state lawmakers want to maintain longstanding prohibitions against public funding for elective abortion even as they seek to create this new government entity. Nearly a quarter of the General Assembly has openly joined our legal challenge, demanding their constitutional right to vote on the creation and powers of the health benefits exchange. Together, we stand against Governor Chafee’s extra-constitutional attempt to force Rhode Islanders to subsidize other people’s abortions under the guise of health care reform.”
About Rhode Island Right to Life: Rhode Island Right to Life was founded in 1970 with the mission to advocate for a state, nation and world in which the innocent lives of the unborn, the disabled, the elderly and the ill are valued by the citizenry and protected by civil law. RI Right to Life lobbies for legislation that advances the cause of the sanctity of human life at both the state and federal levels. RI Right to Life is the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.
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P.O. Box 28285, Providence, RI 02908 • (401) 521- Back to Top
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