Via Box Turtle Bulletin .  Congressman Daniel Lungren complains that congress, in its outrage over bonuses paid to the AIG group that wreaked the company, and oh by the way, the entire world economy, is ignoring the constitution…

Lungren Addresses AIG Bonuses 

Here are the facts: in the stimulus package an amendment was adopted that the Majority put in stating that provisions in the TARP and stimulus bills that limited compensation payments would not apply to ‘any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009.’  It was written specifically to protect the very bonuses that we’re talking about here today.  And so now we’re asking how do we undo what we did?  And the Majority has brought to us a bill that doesn’t recognize the truth of the Constitution.  There is something called a bill of attainder.  You can’t punish a group because you don’t like them.  You can’t have them treated more onerously than somebody else without a trial. 

Now, that’s an unfortunate truth that we have to deal with.  How can we deal with it?  Yesterday in the Judiciary Committee we had an alternative using bankruptcy principles, but that hasn’t been brought to the floor because it’s arguably constitutional.  This is to get headlines to show we are outraged.  Let me tell you if we overturn the Constitution to show our outrage, no single American is safe.  Because in the future what we will do is say, we have a precedent that when we have an unpopular group, when we have a group that deserves some punishment, we won’t go through the real laws.

Emphasis mine.  You can’t punish a group because you don’t like them.  If we overturn the Constitution to show our outrage, no single American is safe.  Ya think? 

Lungren voted for Proposition 8.