Posted on 01/26/2004 7:27:13 AM PST by jmc813
That was great a rant. Biting and ignorant at the same time.
Sen Cornyn proposed the Amendment which reads:
"The Congress may by law provide for the case of death or inability of Members of the House of Representatives, and the case of inability of Members of the Senate, in the event that one-fourth of either House are killed or incapacitated, declaring who shall serve until the disability is removed, or a new Member is elected. Any procedures established pursuant to such a law shall expire not later than 120 days after the death or inability of one-fourth of the House of Representatives or the Senate, but may be extended for additional 120-day periods if one-fourth of either the House of Representatives or the Senate remains vacant or occupied by members unable to serve."
I don't think you are seeing the entire picture here. The coastal states do not comprise the majority of congress as far as the number of congress-critters are concerned, though there are quite a few.
In a catastrophe that size we wouldn't need congress to declare war, the individual states would do what they could to preserve what they could.
Read this from Ron Paul above: "I strongly oppose this constitutional amendment, because I believe an appointed Congress would become an unaccountable, tyrannical Congress."
Yeah, I can just see a President Hillary leading the charge to 'appoint' congress.
I don't think that Ron Paul is noticing the catastrophy, and anarchy of such an event.
On the contrary, catastrophe is exactly what he is trying to avoid. Anarchy, on the other hand, is held in check by the elected President, using his executive authority, not by Congress.
In such an event, the elected President would continue to have full executive authority. There are no emergency powers that the elected President would be denied, while Congress was being reconstituted by the voters in each district. Congress is by definition, a behemoth that moves ponderously. A 21 day delay in getting new legislation passed would be nominal. During that 21 days, the elected President would still be able to issue Executive Orders. But, unlike the permanent laws that would be passed by an un-elected Congress, those Executive Orders would be subject to being overridden by the incoming elected Congress. The reason that the laws passed by an un-elected Congress would be effectively permanent, is that the un-elected members would have the advantage of incumbency in the next election and many would retain those seats for decades.
Even after the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, Congress did nothing of import for days. Oh, Sheila Jackson Lee and others took the opportunity to get their faces on television. But, Congress did nothing. It was not within their power to take any immediate action. The elected President did however, take immediate steps (within hours) to insure against further such attacks. Congress didn't ground all of the aircraft, that day. The elected President did. That's how it is supposed to work.
The only way that I could accept an appointed, un-elected Congress, is if 1) they were temporary, serving only until an elected Congress could be seated, which should occur no more than 3 days after a special election to be held within 21 days, 2) the un-elected Congressmen would not be eligible to sit for election in that special election (no incumbency advantage) and 3) any laws passed by the un-elected Congress would automatically sunset 45 days after the elected Congress was constituted, if not already overridden by the elected Congress (the elected Congress would have to pass their own versions of those bills if they deemed them necessary).
But, as I pointed out above, since the elected President retains full executive authority, even when Congress is not in session, there is no need, even for such provisions as those outlined in the previous paragraph. Ron Paul is indeed, trying to avoid the almost certain catastrophe that would follow an appointed Congress. In such a Congress, there would be no young newcomers, who had not yet been corrupted by the political system, to raise a voice of dissent. They would all be political insiders, who were long beholden to the party leadership. Pardon me. But, judging from where the party leadership of both parties has taken those parties, in the last few years, that's a scarier scenario than no Congress at all, for as much as several months.
Once again, Ron Paul is there to speak up for the people, when few others will. Thank you, Congressman Paul.
Of course there's no Constitutional Authority to hand power over to FEMA that I'm aware of.
Gee Ron, how is that any different from today ??
Anarchy? Anarchy is when you can never tell if your person or property will be violated by an unaccountable third party, like Congress, for example.
Proposed? Where? By whom?
You sound sort of like the quarterback that just got sacked and had his bell rung real good. "What linebacker? Where? I didn't see no linebacker."
Let's see? Where shall we start? After all, there are quite a few. I'm not sure which one Congressman Paul is referring to, so here is a list of just those that have already been put in the form of a bill in Congress (two from the last Congress).
Gee? Not bad for something that you thought didn't exist. Maybe you should think about learning just a little bit about your subject, before you start making snide comments. In other words, engage brain before putting mouth in gear.
That way, that don't have to honor the constitutional rules for succession of officials if the president dies "accidentally" wink, wink.
Will someone tell Paul we have that type of congress NOW.
Two problems with the Sensenbrenner bill that Paul is speaking of are that the majority party may suffer the preponderance of casualties putting the minority into power.
Doesn't seem likely enough or severe enough to amend the Constitution (even Speaker Pelosi doesn't scare me enough- though if it were a more likely event it would!)
And the Presidency may be filled by an insignificant person (Pelosi or Barney Frank or Sheila Jackson Lee etc.) for 21+ days while waiting for the elections if the Pres and VP were killed. He would have to make extraordinarily tough decisions with little prestige during that period and may be subject to extreme partisan attacks during a period of great public insecurity.
Well tough- them's the breaks and I think we'd work through it.
I don't know which of the other continuity proposals Paul is criticizing here (he doesn't say). However all I have seen make the appointments temporary.
Tell that to someone who cares or needs to know; it STILL doesn't change the argument that SOMEONE in civil government makes the call -
- comprehend?
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