The “necessary and proper” clause is about making laws, not about determining one person’s eligibility. Congress CAN make laws regarding the implementation of the Constitution’s requirements. But they’ve never passed a law establishing a procedure whereby Presidential eligibility is determined, which means that there is no current legal process for this to be determined, and each controversy that arises has to be decided through the courts. But they refuse.
In regards to “natural born citizen”, we have come to a dangerous place if the legislative branch interprets the Constitution rather than the judicial branch. The separation of powers and checks and balances were put in place for a reason. Congress’ record on Constitutionality is even more dismal than SCOTUS’s. People like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid should not be deciding what the Constitution means.
The Constitution specifically has a tougher process to be amended or interpreted than anything Congress does, because the Constitution is supposed to be the foundation. No mere Congressional vote is supposed to mess with the foundation. If the elected people are going to make changes to the Constitution there is a strict process that has to be used, and that is for our protection, since Congress is one of the most easily-corruptible bodies on the planet.
To put Congress in charge of interpreting the US Constitution messes with the whole foundation. To put any individual state Secretary of State in charge of interpreting the US Constitution also messes with the whole foundation - which is what SCOTUS is doing: passing the buck to people who have NO CLUE how to interpret the Constitution. It is treason for the Supreme Court to refuse to do what only they can do, on such a critical Constitutional issue, with such far-reaching ramifications.
The whole system of checks and balances, separation of powers, supremacy of the US Constitution and the judiciary’s authority to interpret and apply the Constitution in matters of both law and fact... all that went into the state eligibility bills that I and others have worked on, to ensure that none of the founding principles were violated or altered, but that they would actually be implemented as intended.
Congress can challenge the actions of a President. That’s what is going on with Libya. Any member of Congress could have filed suit over an action of Obama, raising the issue of whether he had “failed to qualify”. They would have standing, because Obama is the person who either signs or vetoes legislation that those people give input on. Congress doesn’t have to sit like lumps on a log. If we had any patriots in Congress they should have stepped up to the plate a long time ago - by filing a suit that would force the judiciary to deal with the crimes committed by Obama et al in order to cover his ineligibility AND to rule on the definition of “natural born citizen”.
But if there were any patriots on SCOTUS they would already have done their Constitutional duty and taken up such an important “controversy”.
As it is right now, everybody in government is corrupt. I don’t trust any of them, any farther than I can throw the whole lot of them. We need to make it so that the “right to petition the government for a redress of grievances” means more than somebody filing a suit and the courts ignoring it because they say the person “lacks standing”.
The rght to petition the government for a redress of grievances has to mean something real. It has to mean that real people can get real results when they can prove that the government has broken laws and/or the Constitution.
Right now we’re watching this administration and its enablers openly commit crime after crime after crime, and the only question any of us have is whether anything will “stick” - whether any law actually means anything, or whether they can all be fudged and ignored because nobody will do anything about it. It’s such a ridiculous situation that just 3 short years ago I thought it impossible to reach this level.
I listen to the candidates and I think (excuse my french) “Big f-ing deal.” What difference do any of the words make, when everybody on the planet knows that whatever the power players want to get away with, they will get away with, because the little guys in Congress and in law enforcement will never stand up to them, and they totally blow off any of us little peons who don’t have a powerful position.
We have seen in other countries what happens when law enforcement refuses to do its job, when “justice” is for sale to the highest bidder. That is what is happening here. We are already a banana republic. We roared with our votes the loudest anybody has ever roared, and the R’s responded by giving away everything including the kitchen sink to the lame ducks. The system is broken because the biggest check on government is gone - the right of the people to petition AND GET FROM THE GOVERNMENT a redress of grievances.
The people in Washington DC will not show one iota of respect for the rule of law unless and until WE THE PEOPLE are able to haul them off to jail for crimes committed regardless of how their butt-covering pals in high positions try to weasel out of the law meaning anything.
I'm not sure about you. You sure write a lot of words, sort of like a lawyer. (See "words multiplied" in Gulliver's Travels.) But lots of words don't make you right. The Constitution does not give the Court(s) the power to decide anything that Congress hasn't legislated on. You need to reread "and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." None of this is left to the Court(s) nor should it have been. The only issue for the Court here absent a declaration by Congress is what might be meant by the phrase natural-born citizen.
ML/NJ
I should also point out that it was the Congress in 1792 that decided what was meant by the word dollar, because they thought clarification was needed. They didn't say what was meant by the word year because maybe they felt that there was no question about it. And maybe they felt the same way about natural-born citizen.
ML/NJ