THE RIPY REPORT

The Congressional Research Service prepared in 1985 a short (six-page) report entitled "Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment," written by Thomas Ripy, a legislative attorney, in response to Bill Benson's first volume The Law That Never Was, published in 1984. The Ripy Report basically relies on the "conclusive presumption" argument, i.e., that the courts must accept that the 16th amendment was ratified simply because the Secretary of State proclaimed that it was, that such proclamation is "conclusive" upon the courts, and that the courts cannot consider any other evidence presented to nullify it. Ripy's Congressional report asserts that the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government, and, therefore, unable to evaluate the actions and possible misconduct of some other branch of government or one of its officials. Ripy suggests that the changes made by the states were typographical errors.

WE THE PEOPLE COMMENTS ON THE RIPY REPORT

The Ripy Report did not try to refute Benson's work on its merits; instead it attempted a "technical knock out." One can easily bring to mind many instances where one "co-equal" branch of government has indeed evaluated and done something about misconduct of another branch or one of its officials. Ripy's idea would be virtually tantamount to saying that a public official is not accountable to anyone for misconduct, and is above the law. On an issue of fact, Ripy seems to say that evidence of word changes to the amendment by the states was taken from legislative journals, when in fact such evidence actually was in the very resolutions submitted to the Secretary by the states, and was noted by the Secretary's solicitor in his (in)famous memo. The changes made by the states were clearly not typographical errors, but were very deliberate and intentional.

A rebuttal to the Ripy Report was prepared in 1986 by Benson and Spiegel and submitted to "The Court of Public Opinion." See "People of the United States of America vs The Government of the United States" in the Court of Public Opinion. September 15, 1986. Andrew B. Spiegel. Published by Constitutional Research Assoc., S. Holland, IL. Cockle Law Brief Printing Co. (800) 225-6964. Benson and Spiegel contend that Ripy ignored the facts in making his argument, and they cite the precedents of numerous court cases to reject Ripy's contention that the actions of the Secretary are beyond judicial review. Their suggestion for a solution that the people can apply is for a widespread campaign of jury nullification of tax case prosecutions at both the grand jury and trial jury levels.