Posted on 07/19/2005 11:08:20 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
It's not often that first-graders, CIA agents, agriculture inspectors and airport security workers from coast to coast all receive a lesson on the same topic -- and on the same day -- but that is what's in store this September.
The subject is the U.S. Constitution, thanks to a new law fathered by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who is worried that so many people don't know the first thing about the country's governing document that he decided to try to make sure they do.
Tucked into a massive appropriations bill approved without fanfare late last year by Congress is the requirement that every one of the estimated 1.8 million federal employees in the executive branch receive "educational and training" materials about the charter on Constitution Day, a holiday celebrating the Sept. 17, 1787, signing that is so obscure that it, unlike Arbor Day, is left off many calendars.
That's not all: The law requires every school that receives federal funds -- including universities -- to show students a program on the Constitution, though it does not specify a particular one. The demand has proved unpopular with educators, who say that they don't like the federal government telling them what to teach and that it doesn't make the best educational sense to teach something as important as the Constitution out of context....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
KKK Byrd loves you!
Why would a Dem want to call attention or to educate someone on the Constitution? Their whole existence is to thwart it!!
No problem.
All they have to do is turn down Federal Money.
'Educators' are the pickiest bitchiest whores in the world.
So9
Can't do that. If they realize what the Constitution actually says, some of them may walk off the job after they realize their job, department, even whole agency is unconstitutional. Especially in the Executive Department. Which in and of itself wouldn't be a bad thing at all....
How successful have the education increases been in teaching students?
What good does it do to educate the executive branch about the Constitution when the legislative (why can't we impeach Rove) branch doesn't have a CLUE about it?? THEY'RE the ones who need educating on the Constitution.
Wow - how way ahead of my time am I? I home school my kids, and they have all had to read and study the constitution, before it was a law! Maybe that's just a good idea......??
The feeling is not mutual, I can assure you.
If he thinks this law is constitutional, he needs to re-read the copy of the Constitution he carries in his pocket.
How about a program on the enumerated powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8?...which, of course, does not include any federal authority over schools
He's a walking contradiction. I'm just surprised he didn't rename it to Byrd Constitution Day
This is precious. The principal of a school named for environmentalist uber-wacko Rachel Carson pretending that his school teaches all about the Constitution.
Then again, that's not really what he said. He said that they "cover the Constitution up, down and around."
I'm afraid to ask what they cover it with.
Not the commandments
So they can teach them their version. It's called adult brainwashing.
I think not. What do you want to bet that a liberal slant will be put into the curriculum teaching the Constitution to be a "Living Document" (subject to interpretation... of activist judges of course)!
That and the spending involved were the thoughts which occurred to me
SCOTUS members should be at the top of the list to read and learn the Constitution.
Dem style Constitution lesson:
When the Constitution gets between the earth and the sun, it casts a shadow. The outer part of this shadow is the penumbra. Even further out are the emanations of the penumbra. Now these emanations do not limit the power of federal government like the actual text of the Constitution does. No, they expand the power well past the edges of the earth out to the infinite edge of the universe.
Justice O'Connor in New York v. United States 505 US 144 (1992) discussed methods by which Congress could "encourage" a State to regulate according to its wishes. Along with "cooperative federalism," Congress may employ the "spending power" to achieve its aims:
"...the Constitution authorizes Congress "to pay the Debts and provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States." Art. I, 8, cl. 1. As conventional notions of the proper objects of government spending have changed over the years, so has the ability of Congress to "fix the terms on which it shall disburse federal money to the States..."
"...'Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds.' South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S., at 206. Such conditions must (among other requirements) bear some relationship to the purpose of the federal spending, id., at 207-208, and n. 3; otherwise, of course, the spending power could render academic the Constitution's other grants and limits of federal authority. Where the recipient of federal funds is a State, as is not unusual today, the conditions attached to the funds by Congress may influence a State's legislative choices. See Kaden, Politics, Money, and State Sovereignty: The Judicial Role, 79 Colum. L. Rev. 847, 874-881 (1979). Dole was one such case: The Court found no constitutional flaw in a federal statute directing the Secretary of Transportation to withhold federal highway funds from States failing to adopt Congress' choice of a minimum drinking age. Similar examples abound. See, e. g., Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 478-480 (1980); Massachusetts v. United States, 435 U.S. 444, 461-462 (1978); Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 568-569 (1974); Oklahoma v. Civil Service Comm'n, 330 U.S. 127, 142-144 (1947)." .."if a State's citizens view federal policy as sufficiently contrary to local interests, they may elect to decline a federal grant..."
In South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), Chief Justice Rehnquist outlined the limitations upon Congressional conditions imposed upon State receipt of funds under the federal "spending power":
"...The breadth of this power was made clear in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936), where the Court, resolving a longstanding debate over the scope of the Spending Clause, determined that "the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." Thus, objectives not thought to be within Article I's "enumerated legislative fields," id., at 65, may nevertheless be attained through the use of the spending power and the conditional grant of federal funds.
"The spending power is of course not unlimited, Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, and n. 13 (1981), but is instead subject to several general restrictions articulated in our cases. The first of these limitations is derived from the language of the Constitution itself: the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of "the general welfare." See Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 640-641 (1937); United States v. Butler, supra, at 65. In considering whether a particular expenditure is intended to serve general public purposes, courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Congress. Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 640, 645. Second, we have required that if Congress desires to condition the States' receipt of federal funds, it "must do so unambiguously . . ., enabl[ing] the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation." Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, supra, at 17. Third, our cases have suggested (without significant elaboration) that conditions on federal grants might be illegitimate if they are unrelated "to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs." Massachusetts v. United States, 435 U.S. 444, 461 (1978) (plurality opinion). See also Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v. McCracken, supra, at 295, ("[T]he Federal Government may establish and impose reasonable conditions relevant to federal interest in the project and to the over-all objectives thereof"). Finally, we have noted that other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds. Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood School Dist., 469 U.S. 256, 269-270 (1985); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 91 (1976) (per curiam); King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 333, n. 34 (1968)."
..."These cases establish that the "independent constitutional bar" limitation on the spending power is not, as petitioner suggests, a prohibition on the indirect achievement of objectives which Congress is not empowered to achieve directly. Instead, we think that the language in our earlier opinions stands for the unexceptionable proposition that the power may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional. Thus, for example, a grant of federal funds conditioned on invidiously discriminatory state action or the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment would be an illegitimate exercise of the Congress' broad spending power...."
[Note: An example of such a program is CZMA (Coastal Zone Management Act) or CZARA. (Coastal Zone Reauthorization Amendment of 1990.) As explained in Secretary of Interior v. California, 464 U.S. 312 (1984):
"CZMA was enacted in 1972 to encourage the prudent management and conservation of natural resources in the coastal zone. Congress found that the 'increasing and competing demands upon the lands and waters of our coastal zone' had 'resulted in the loss of living marine resources, wildlife, nutrient-rich areas, permanent and adverse changes to ecological systems, decreasing open space for public use, and shoreline erosion.' 16 U.S.C. 1451(c) (1982 ed.). Accordingly, Congress declared a national policy to protect the coastal zone, to encourage the States to develop coastal zone management programs, to promote cooperation between federal and state agencies engaged in programs affecting the coastal zone, and to encourage broad participation in the development of coastal zone management programs. 16 U.S.C. 1452 (1982 ed.).
"Through a system of grants and other incentives, CZMA encourages each coastal State to develop a coastal management plan. Further grants and other benefits are made available to a coastal State after its management plan receives federal approval from the Secretary of Commerce. To obtain such approval a state plan must adequately consider the 'national interest' and 'the views of Federal agencies principally affected by such program.' 16 U.S.C. 1455(c)(8), 1456(b) (1982 ed.)."]
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