A Brief History of Legislative Repeal

Republican representatives in the 112th Congress are prepared to launch an attempt to repeal Health Care Reform, enacted during the previous Congress in the previous year. It's unclear exactly on what grounds or which part of the Health Care Reform legislation they intend to take away and what they can offer as an al6ternative.

Four elements of the new law which became effective this week will likely prove popular among the electorate and therefore a difficult target for repeal.

1. Requiring Health Insurance Companies to Spend Your Premiums on Providing Benefits: Health insurance companies describe the amount of your premiums that they spend on providing health care to you as their “medical loss ratio.” While medical loss ratios for health insurance used to average 90%, it has slipped in recent years, with some companies in the individual market having ratios as low as 60%. The health insurance reform legislation requires that 85% of premiums for large plans, and 80% for medium and small-sized plans, goes toward providing health care, rather than marketing and profits.
2. Closing the Medicare Doughnut Hole: Under the Medicare prescription drug coverage program, established in 2005, millions of Americans are required to pay monthly premiums all year around, but lose coverage after incurring $2,700 on prescription expenses in a year. Coverage does not restart until the senior has spent $6,154. For seniors on fixed or limited incomes faced with significant prescription drug needs, this doughnut hole in coverage can pose a significant economic burden. A major step was taken toward closing this doughnut hole, as drug companies are now required to provide a 50% discount on the cost of drugs while seniors are in the doughnut hole. That discount will continue until 2020, when the doughnut hole will be entirely eliminated.
3. Medicare Preventive Services Coverage: In an effort to improve health and reduce long term health care costs, Medicare co-pays have now been eliminated for preventive services identified by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, including diabetes and cancer screenings, tobacco use cessation counseling, and healthy diet counseling. Deductibles for colorectal cancer screening have also been eliminated.
4. Saving Taxpayer Money: One of the steps in the health care reform legislation to save taxpayer money is to end the unnecessary subsidy to privately run Medicare Advantage insurance plans, which receive 14% more taxpayer money than similar Medicare plans run by the government. This subsidy begins to be eliminated this year.

If you could, which one of those would YOU repeal. Simple answer is none of them. Obama will veto any repeal attempt that makes it past both the House and the Senate. Nothing is getting past the Senate, so it's a moot point. Hey Boehner, "Quit fucking around and get back to work."

There are of course other significant legislative repeals in American history. Following is a brief history of the big ones. Take notice of the morality of the historical repeals.

1802 – The Naturalization Act Repealed

The Naturalization Act, passed by Congress on June 18, 1798, increased the amount of time necessary for immigrants to become naturalized citizens in the United States from five to fourteen years. Although it was passed under the guise of protecting national security, most historians conclude it was really intended to decrease the number of voters who disagreed with the Federalist political party. At the time, most immigrants (namely Irish and French) supported Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, the political opponents of the Federalists. This act was repealed in 1802.

1864 – The Anti-Gold Futures Act Repealed

The Anti-Gold Futures Act of 1864 (13 Stat. 132) was the first instance of United States Federal regulation of derivatives. More formally titled "An Act to Prohibit Certain Sales of Gold and Foreign Exchange," the Act was passed by Congress on June 17, 1864.

It was a response to Congressional perceptions that fiat currency greenbacks, trading at a low value relative to gold, were a result of a failure of the private market. The Act prohibited the trading of gold futures, and also criminalized the sale of foreign exchange more than ten days in the future. Congress's action was followed by a further sharp drop in the value of the greenbacks. Two weeks later Congress repealed the act.

1920 – The Lever Food Act Repealed

The Food and Fuel Control Act, sponsored by Rep. Asbury F. Lever, a Democrat of South Carolina, became law on August 10, 1917. It is sometimes called the Lever Act or the Lever Food Act. Its official name was "An Act to Provide Further for the National Security and Defense by Encouraging the Production, Conserving the Supply, and Controlling the Distribution of Food Products and Fuel."

The work of the Fuel Administration ended in May 1919. The activities of the Food Administration declined quickly after the armistice and all but disappeared by July 1920.

Most of the Act was repealed in December 1920 along with a number of other wartime measures. Court cases brought under the Act continued to work their way through the courts.

1920 – The Sedition Act Repealed

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 16, 1918. It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." It was repealed on December 13, 1920.

1933 - Prohibition Repealed

The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the US Constitution along with the Volstead Act, was certified on January 16, 1919. It was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, the only instance of an amendment's repeal. The Eighteenth Amendment was also unique in setting a time delay before it would take effect following ratification and in setting a time limit for its ratification by the states.

1934 – The Dawes Act Repealed

The Dawes General Allotment Act was enacted by the U.S. Congress regarding the distribution of land to Native Americans in Oklahoma. It was signed into law February 8, 1887. Named after its sponsor, U.S. Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, the act was amended in 1891 and again in 1906 by the Burke Act. The act remained in effect until 1934. The act provided for the division of tribally held lands into individually-owned parcels and opening "surplus" lands to settlement by non-Indians and development by railroads.

1943 – The Chinese Exclusion Act Repealed

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years. This law was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.

1952 – The Naturalization Law of 1790 Repealed

The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white persons" of "good moral character". It thus, left out indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and later Asians. While women were included in the act, the right of citizenship did "not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States...." Citizenship was inherited exclusively through the father. This was the only statute that ever purported to grant the status of natural born citizen.

In order to address one's "good moral character," the law required two years of residence in the United States and one year in the state of residence, prior to applying for citizenship. When those requirements were met, an immigrant could file a Petition for Naturalization with "any common law court of record" having jurisdiction over his residence asking to be naturalized. Once convinced of the applicant’s good moral character, the court would administer an oath of allegiance to support the Constitution of the United States. The clerk of court was to make a record of these proceedings, and "thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States."

The Act also establishes the United States citizenship of children of citizens, born abroad, without the need for naturalization, "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens".

The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to people born within the United States (excluding non-taxed Indians who were granted citizenship in the 1920s) regardless of their parents' race, citizenship, or place of birth. The 1898 Supreme Court court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark grants citizenship to a U.S. American born child of Chinese parents, extending citizenship to Asians born in the U.S.

The Act of 1790 was superseded by the Naturalization Act of 1795, which extended the residence requirement to five years. The Naturalization Act of 1870 extended citizenship to people of African descent who were born in the United States. The 1952 naturalization act prohibits racial and gender discrimination in naturalization.

1964 – Jim Crow Laws Repealed

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.

Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

1965 – The Immigration Act of 1924 Repealed

The Immigration Act of 1924 was a United States federal law that limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s, as well as prohibiting the immigration of East Asians and Asian Indians. Quotas remained in place with minor alterations until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

1967 - Prohibition of Interracial Marriage Repealed

The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883. The Supreme Court ruled that the Alabama anti-miscegenation statute did not violate the 14th Amendment. According to the court, both races were treated equally, because whites and blacks were punished in equal measure for breaking the law against interracial marriage and interracial sex. This judgment was overturned in 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia case, where the Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional.

Also:

On March 20, 1924 the Virginia General Assembly (United States) passed two laws that had arisen out of contemporary concerns about eugenics and race: "The Racial Integrity Act" and "The Sterilization Act".

The Racial Integrity Act required that a racial description of every person be recorded at birth and divided society into only two classifications: white and colored (all other, essentially, which included numerous American Indians). It defined race by the "one-drop rule", defining as colored persons with any African or Indian ancestry. It also expanded the scope of Virginia's ban on interracial marriage (anti-miscegenation law) by criminalizing all marriages between white persons and non-white persons. In 1967 the law was overturned by the United States Supreme Court.

The Sterilization Act provided for compulsory sterilization of persons deemed to be "feebleminded," including the "insane, idiotic, imbecile, or epileptic."

Together these laws implemented the practice of "scientific eugenics" in Virginia.

1971 – The Alaska Native Allotment Act Repealed

The Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906, enacted on May 17, 1906, permitted individual Alaska Natives to acquire title to up to 160 acres of land in a manner similar to that afforded to Native Americans in the other states and territories of the United States under the General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act). However, the General Allotment Act and the Alaska Native Allotment Act, while in some ways similar, differed considerably in their purpose and political circumstances under which they were enacted, and differed in their effects as well.

The Alaska Native Allotment Act was repealed in 1971 with the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).


1976 – Revised Statute 2477 Repealed

Revised Statute 2477 was enacted by the United States Congress in 1866 to encourage the settlement of the Western United States by the development of a system of highways. Its entire text is one sentence: "the right-of-way for the construction of highways across public lands not otherwise reserved for public purposes is hereby granted."

The original grant did not require being recorded, meaning it was self enacting, and in 1866 constructing a road often meant using a trail many times and perhaps filling low places, moving rocks and placing signs.

It granted to counties and states a right-of-way across federal land when a highway was built.

RS 2477 was repealed in 1976 under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).

1978 – The Edmunds-Tucker Act Repealed

The Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887 was passed in response to the dispute between the United States Congress and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) regarding polygamy. The act is named after its congressional sponsors, Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont and Congressman John Randolph Tucker of Virginia. The act was repealed in 1978.

The act disincorporated both the LDS Church and the Perpetual Emigration Fund on the grounds that they fostered polygamy. The act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It dissolved the corporation of the church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000. The act was enforced by the U.S. marshal and a host of deputies.

1991 – The Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law Repealed

The Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law was the popular name for a United States administrative regulation promulgated in 1969 to prevent the spread of biological contamination from space. Implemented before the Apollo 11 mission, it provided the legal authority for a quarantine period for the returning astronauts. The regulation included a definition of exposure as "the state of condition of any person, property, animal or other form of life or matter whatever, who or which has touched directly or come within the atmospheric envelope or any other celestial body or touched directly or been in close proximity (or exposed indirectly to) any person, property, animal or other form of life or matter who or which has been extra-terrestrially exposed.

Quarantining of astronauts on the first lunar missions was mandated in 1969 to prepare for "the remote possibility that they are harboring unknown lunar organisms that might endanger life on earth", and the Apollo 11 voyagers were kept in quarantine for 21 days after their return from the moon. After the completion of the Apollo 14 mission, NASA stopped enforcing the regulation, though it remained on the books.

The rule was formally removed from the Code of Federal Regulations in 1991.

1980 & 1999 – The Glass-Steagall Act Repealed
The Banking Act of 1933 was a law establishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and introducing banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation. It is most commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, after its legislative sponsors, Carter Glass and Henry B. Steagall.

Some provisions of the Act, such as Regulation Q, which allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts, were repealed by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act.

The repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between Wall Street investment banks and depository banks and has been blamed by some for exacerbating the damage caused by the collapse of the sub prime mortgage market that led to the Financial crisis of 2007–2010.

1995 – The National Maximum Speed Limit Law Repealed

The National Maximum Speed Law in the United States was a provision of the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that prohibited speed limits higher than 55 mph. This law was modified in 1987 to allow 65 mph limits on certain roads.

The law was widely disregarded by motorists. Most states subversively opposed the law, ranging from proposing deals for exemption from it to minimizing speeding penalties.

This cap was intended to reduce gasoline consumption by 2.2% in response to the 1973 oil crisis. However, net fuel savings were calculated by the United States Department of Transportation at 1%, and independent studies found savings as low as half of one percent.

In 1995, the law was repealed, returning the power of setting speed limits to the states.

1998 – The Job Training Partnership Act Repealed

The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was a United States federal law passed October 13, 1982. The law was the successor to the previous federal job training legislation, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). It was repealed by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

2003 – Sodomy Laws Repealed

Sodomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety sexual acts, were historically pervasive. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes as well, sometimes even married persons. They were invalidated by the 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, though members of the U.S. Armed Forces may still be prosecuted for sodomy under special criteria.

2006 – The Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act Repealed

The Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act was a state law passed by the South Dakota State Legislature in early 2006. It emerged as an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade via enacting a ban on abortion in the state of South Dakota. The law was repealed by voter referendum on November 7th, 2006.