Unless I have badly misread the original filing, this whole faraggo was about Schulz claiming that his “right to petition” had been denied him. Schulz make one true statement in his entire presentation towit; “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”, and then proceeds to build the rest of his specious argument from there.
As near as I can ascertain from reading that piece of mind numbing drivel, Schulz has admitted that no one stopped them from inundating all and sundry with their petitions, and yet somehow his right to petition has been infringed upon.Schulz as quoted by the court wrote:Plaintiffs contend that the First Amendment guarantees a citizen's right to receive a government response to or official consideration of a petition for redress of grievances.
The gist of all this is that he contends that the “right to petition” also guarantees a right to a response and that if they don’t get a response then they have a “right” to withhold their taxes.
The District court rejected the suit, quite rightly, on the basis “that the First Amendment does not provide plaintiffs with the right to receive a government response to or official consideration of their petitions”. The language is quite clear and concise as to what is there or not there. A petition, like a ringing phone, has no constitutional right to be answered. They further found that by the anti-injunction act they were precluded from enjoining the IRS from collecting taxes.
Putting it plainly, there is NO constitutional requirement, authority, or mechanism for this. All the amendment says is that you cannot be penalized for petitioning, not that you have to be paid attention to.
I think too much is being read into this, the two basic questions are: does Art I require an answer to a petition, plain reading of the amendment, and of precedent say NO, and can the IRS be enjoined from collecting lawfully due taxes, again the answer in most cases is NO.
I personally think the suit should have been bounced for failure to state a cause for which relief can be sought.
Schulz is not in this for anything other than monetary gain, so attributing too much to his great crusade is pointless.
Schulz, and every other TP who has come up with some various of this idea, has been answered time and time again, but the point is that they didn’t get the answer they wanted so they were ignored.
