Responses To Petitions For Redress

Source:http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/Update/Update2008-07-18.htm

Responses To Petitions For Redress: Varied

Each congressman who has been served was asked to respond in forty days with formal, specific answers to the questions embedded in each of the seven Petitions for Redress, and to let the server know within one week if he or she intended to so respond.

Thus far, as expected, there appears to be a conspiracy of silence among the members of Congress. Most have not been heard from.

One member of the House of Representatives, Kirsten Gillibrand (who was served by Bob Schulz) was contacted by the local daily newspaper (Post Star) and asked if she intended to respond. Her representative in the district office said Gillibrand would respond. Click here to read the news article published in the Post Star on July 3rd: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

One or two other members notified their servers that they would be responding within the forty days.

There has been two non-responsive responses.

Rep. Ike Skelton

Most egregiously, Rep. Ike Skelton (Missouri) answered the Petitions for Redress with another stain on the Constitution. On July 9th, Skelton retaliated by turning over the Petitions for Redress and the identity of his servers (Ray and Elaine Herron) to the IRS and the Department of Justice, labeling the Herrons as “tax avoiders.” Click to read Rep. Skelton's letter of retaliation: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

Editor’s Note: The Herrons are law abiding citizens who own a small business, have never had any trouble with the law (traffic ticket the exception) and who have always filed their tax returns. WTP believes it should contact Skelton to suggest he take a course on the Constitution, to be paid for by WTP if he obtains a grade of “B” or better.

It did not take the Herrons long to respond to Skelton. They posted a message on Skelton’s website and have decided to file a federal lawsuit in Kansas City, MO to bring Ike Skelton before a federal judge for unconstitutionally retaliating against them for merely claiming and exercising their creator-endowed, natural, unalienable, First Amendment Right to Petition Skelton for Redress of violations of the Constitution.

Let us hope the federal Judiciary will abide by well-established legal precedent establishing that one cannot be penalized for the exercise of fundamental Rights -- particularly if such Rights involve challenging the authority of the Government.

The complaint is expected to be filed early next week.

Rep. Skelton’s letter response to the Herrons: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

Message the Herrons posted on Skelton’s website: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

Copy of a draft of the complaint to be filed shortly by the Herrons: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

WTP’s Plan to Restore Constitutional Order is on track, but running behind schedule.

By now, the Petitions for Redress should have been delivered to every member of Congress and we should have been able to proudly proclaim, “Congress has been served!”

Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet.

To begin with, we timely mailed 1219 sets of Petition packages to over 700 people who volunteered to serve 535 members of Congress in their district offices on June 30, 2008, and to return to us a notarized proof of service.

By July 3rd and again after the July 4th weekend we had received and were processing hundreds of returns from volunteers who had successfully completed service. However, by July 10th it was apparent that 129 of the 535 members of Congress had still not been served! We scrambled to close the “service gap,” contacting volunteers associated with the still un-served congressmen. Due to the urgency of the task and the work involved, Bob Schulz cancelled his scheduled appearance at the Revolution March in Washington, DC.

For whatever reason, many who had volunteered to serve their member(s) of Congress apparently received the Petition package(s) from us (at no cost) but decided not to serve it – i.e., they simply failed to do what they had committed to do as part of this historical project.

The issue comes down to knowing who to trust: Who among us has the passion and has truly made the struggle to restore constitutional order a priority in their lives?

The vast majority of the volunteers certainly earned the trust of all of us who are engaged in the struggle. They served the cause of Freedom well by timely, intelligently and professionally serving the Petitions for Redress on over 400 members of Congress. We are sincerely grateful for their service to the People and to our Constitution.

However, dozens of others have apparently demonstrated that they are less worthy of our trust. Despite having made a public commitment to serve the Petitions, these individuals ultimately decided to keep the Petition package, rather than serve it as they promised to do.

Did these people have a legitimate personal situation which kept them from participating? Were they simply seeking a free souvenir? Were they confused because the website showed that others had also signed up to serve particular congressman so they simply kept the material for themselves, assuming that others would serve the Petitions? Did they have any intention of honestly participating in this precedent-setting project to hold the government accountable to the Constitution? Were they agents of special interests (such as the Government) seeking to disrupt our project?

We may never know the answers to these questions. What we do know is that the failure of so many to timely serve their congressmen has substantially delayed our schedule of events. We also know there appears to be a rather significant number of people who have not yet earned our trust.

To be sure, we must be very careful about who we rely on for the successful execution of Phase 2 of the Plan to Restore Constitutional Order.

As is now generally known, Phase 2 is the filing of federal lawsuits for declaratory and injunctive relief in each of the eleven federal judicial circuits outside of the DC circuit.

Eleven federal district courts around the country will be asked to do something no court has ever done before -- declare the full contours of the meaning of the government accountability clause of the First Amendment, including the obligation of the Government to respond to proper Petitions for Redress of violations of the Constitution and the Right of the People to withdraw their allegiance and support from the Government if Government refuses to properly respond to the People’s Petitions.

Each of the eleven declaratory judgment actions requires that we carefully select the individuals who will initiate the actions as Plaintiffs against the congressmen who will be named as Defendants.

The Plaintiffs need to be people who have signed the Petitions for Redress, have served the Petitions for Redress on one or more of their members of Congress (preferably all three), who reside in the jurisdiction of the federal District Court where the action is to be filed, and who can be trusted to perform the task in good faith.

For a map of the federal judicial circuits click here: http://www.uscourts.gov/c...

Thankfully, an over-abundance of qualified People in each of the eleven judicial (appellate) circuits have volunteered to be Plaintiffs. We have prepared a draft of each of the eleven lawsuits, selecting as Plaintiffs those who satisfy most of the criteria we have deemed necessary to establish standing and successfully sustain the claim through the U.S. Courts of Appeal. We have also selected the congressmen to be named as Defendants.

The problem is we do not yet fully know if all the prospective Plaintiffs can be trusted to perform the task in good faith. We, as an organization committed to restoration of Liberty, cannot afford to rely on the wrong people as Plaintiffs in this historic, precedent-setting project.

We need you, the People, who have so much to gain or lose in our effort, and who are likely to know more about the individuals who have volunteered to be Plaintiffs to help us determine the best individuals to rely on for the successful completion of the next phase of the Plan to Restore Constitutional Order – the litigation phase.

The question is, how can we best achieve this objective?

WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU ABOUT THIS. Click here to give us your ideas or comments.

One idea is as follows:

WTP would lease eleven commercial movie theaters, one in each of the eleven federal judicial circuits where the declaratory judgment actions are currently slated to be filed. We would likely choose from the list of 24 theaters leased by WTP in early 2006 for the initial screening Aaron Russo’s film, “America: Freedom to Fascism.”

The program would be divided into two principal parts. The first part would be a showing of a popular patriotic movie suitable for the entire family -- e.g., the highly entertaining and educational film, “1776.”

The second part of the program would be a short business meeting to review the Plan to Restore Constitutional Order and to examine the potential Plaintiffs for the litigation phase of the Plan.

These meetings will also provide an opportunity for People who are sincerely interested in the cause of Freedom to better organize for civic education and civic action.

Everyone would be invited to attend. There would be no charge.

PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS IDEA.
Click here to give us your ideas or comments: http://www.wethepeoplefou...

We would want to spread the word to every person and good government organization known to each of us. This would be their opportunity to actually do something to restore Constitutional Order beyond "blogging" about the problem. This would be their opportunity to pro-actively, non-violently and by the numbers hold their government accountable to the Constitution!

The Plan to Restore Constitutional Order is designed to arrest unconstitutional wars, money, taxes, invasions of privacy, gun control, immigration and more.

Bob Schulz would be accompanied by his wife, Judy, as Bob will be on his fast beginning August 11, "Hungering for Redress."

Go to www.GiveMeLiberty.org/rev... for all the details of this important Liberty project.

Donations to the tax-exempt 501(c)3 WTP Foundation are fully tax deductible.