PUBLISHED IN THE HILL, 12/5/2013 BY DR. PHILLIPS, SR.

THE PRESIDENTIAL OATH ONCE TAKEN MUST BE KEPT I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This oath once taken by a President represents a solemn and unreserved commitment to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The stress, challenges and pressures that confront the president’s office on a daily basis require his absolute and unreserved commitment to enforce this oath. Today the administration is working overtime to pass a bill that the majority of the American people do not want. The Democrat party presently controls both houses of Congress and the White House. Complicating the healthcare reform bill's consideration is a President who has stated he is not concerned with procedure, yet that is what the Constitution is about. The desire of the Speaker of the House along with the Majority leader in the Senate seems to be to pass this healthcare bill at most any cost. This strategy has resulted in closed room deals, payoffs and apparent subterfuge. Now the nation is being told that the final bill will be deemed to have been approved without the constitutional procedure for voting having been applied. The Presidential oath binds the Chief Executive of the United States to the best of his ability to the preservation, protection and defense of the Constitution. He is not tasked with the preservation, protection and defense of any healthcare bill. If in the course of making a strong effort to follow the oath a bill is passed by constitutionally prescribed means with mandated voting procedure followed, that's another matter. The Constitution outlines the process for rejecting or voting bill into law. The Constitution provides procedures for many things, including a declaration of war, representation by elected representatives and if necessary the impeachment of a sitting President. For any President to ignore Constitutional law and legal procedure for approvals of bills without votes from elected representatives of the people is a violation of the Constitution and the Presidential oath. The results of deliberately obviating the rules of this great document will result in, deterioration of the writ's preservation, protection and defense. At this critical moment in the nation's history when the Constitution and its voting procedure is under attack the document must be defended by the oath taker the President of the United States. To subvert the Constitution by not preserving, protecting and defending the document's provisions would make any President subject to impeachment for violation of his oath. Should the elimination of constitutional voting procedures be supported by the President, our Constitutional laws will neither be protected or preserved. If this healthcare reform bill is enacted through failing to follow constitutional procedure on the part of the President, his violation of the above oath, in my opinion, makes him eligible for impeachment. Dr. Alan Phillips, Sr.