Bachmann: We’re Not Going To Obey Health Care Law — ‘We Don’t Have To’ (VIDEO)

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is going a step beyond simply pledging to fight efforts to pass the health care bill — she’s openly pronouncing that people should personally declare it unconstitutional and defy it, depending on how it ends up getting passed.

At a rally at the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday, Bachmann declared illegitimate the potential route that House Democrats could take to pass the health care bill. She was specifically railing against a parliamentary tactic by which the House could skip voting on the Senate bill by declaring it passed as part of the reconciliation bill. Bachmann pronounced this to be taxation without representation. “They have just started a revolution — and they did it,” said Bachmann.

“But mark my words, the American people aren’t gonna take this lying down,” Bachmann later said. “We aren’t gonna play their game, we’re not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don’t have to. We don’t have to. We don’t have to follow a bill that isn’t law. That’s not the American way, and that’s not what we’re going to do.”

Bachmann continued. “Because it’s one-party rule now in Washington, D.C. Their Chicago tactics, their Chicago friends, twisting Democrats’ arms, threatening their own team members with ethics charges and a submission. This handful of people thinks they can enforce their will on 300 million Americans? They’re not gonna do that. This is dictatorial, what they are doing. We are not compelled to follow a non-law just because Obama and Pelosi tells us we have to.

“If they pass the bill legitimately, then yes, we have to follow the law — until we repeal it. But if they pass it illegitimately, then the bill is illegitimate, and we don’t have to lay down for this. It’s not difficult to figure out. So if for some reason they’re able to get their votes this week and pass this 2,700-page Senate bill — if they get it, trillions of dollars is what it’s gonna cost, when we didn’t vote on it, we need to tell them a message: That if they get away with this, they will be able to get away with anything — with anything. And you can’t say you voted on a bill when you didn’t, because it’s fraud. But we are not helpless here. We are not helpless, there are things that we can do.”

This approach goes beyond the conventional nullification position, which argues that states should have the power to interpose themselves against the federal government. In this case, Bachmann is calling for a individuals to commit civil disobedience against the law — which should be very interesting to watch, if it really does come to that, and a sitting member of Congress leads citizens in breaking the law.

The key moment comes at the 20:00 mark:

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