Posted on 10/18/2005 11:46:37 AM PDT by bornacatholic
Phins Tix Ads! Miers did Bush Texas-sized favor
By Tom Blackburn
Palm Beach Post Columnist
Monday, October 17, 2005
President Bush's choice for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, did battle with the Constitution once, in 2000. And she won.
Her task as a lawyer was to show that what looked like a duck, walked like a duck and quacked like a duck was a grizzly bear. She convinced a Texas federal judge. More from Opinion • Sound off in the blog • Columnists • Editorials/Letters • Don Wright cartoons
The bear in question was Richard Cheney. He sure looked like a Texas duck. He lived, worked, voted, paid taxes and enjoyed a homestead exemption in Texas. He did 15 other Texas things, according to three Texans who brought the case against him, not even counting his chili preferences. The problem with Mr. Cheney being a Texan was that he then couldn't have been vice president.
The Constitution says that when electors vote for president and vice president, one of those two, "at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." George Bush was from Texas, so if the Texas electors voted for him they couldn't vote for another Texan. And without the Texas electoral votes, Mr. Cheney would have finished behind Sen. Joe
Lieberman in the Electoral College.
The Constitution is not so clear on whether Sen. Lieberman thereby would have been elected with a majority of the votes cast or if, since he didn't have a majority of authorized votes, the vice presidency would have been thrown into the Senate — and whether the Senate could have ignored the "same state" rule. So let's not go there.
As the lead attorney for the defense, Ms. Miers had to show that Mr. Cheney didn't live in Texas. Luckily, he saw the problem coming and took steps to live in Wyoming despite his 20 degrees of Texas. During the summer of 2000, he flew up to Wyoming and registered to vote, giving his address as his second home. That house is in Wilson, population 1,294, near Jackson Hole. He also, sometime, got a Wyoming driver license and gave up his Texas one. After he registered to vote in Wyoming, he flew home. To Texas.
Unfortunately for him, one would think, it can be argued that Wyoming seems to require people to live a year in the state without claiming residency elsewhere for any purpose before they are inhabitants. But if Ms. Miers could get around the Constitution, the Wyoming law would be duck soup. Or grizzly bear soup. Whichever.
She sold U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater, a Reagan appointee. He ruled that not only had Mr. Cheney lived in Wyoming once but that he had been born there, which was a stretch since Mr. Cheney's official biography lists his birthplace as Lincoln, Neb. He also held that Mr. Cheney had "declared his intent to return to his home state."
As with so many things lately, like catching Osama bin Laden, intent was close enough for government work. That's not exactly the strict construction Mr. Cheney usually prefers.
Judge Fitzwater also ruled that the plaintiffs couldn't show that they were injured by the violation they alleged, so they had no standing to sue. If an American citizen can't be hurt by a constitutional violation, who can be? Nevertheless, the appeals court upheld Judge Fitzwater, and you know where the Supreme Court stood.
After the election, Mr. Cheney sold his house in the Highland Park section of Dallas to Diane Cash, who has given millions for brain research but who already had a home nearby and another in Santa Fe, N.M. It may be asked if she bought the Cheney home as an investment and, if so, in what?
Mr. Cheney may have been a virtual resident of Wyoming, but eventually he moved from Texas to an undisclosed secure location and is still there, not in Wyoming. If Mr. Cheney began the year with a Texas homestead exemption and got a Wyoming driver license and voted there before the year ended, he must have fooled someone.
Virtual residence may have been good enough for Ms. Miers and Judge Fitzwater, but it isn't what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. They wrote the same-state rule because they thought it would be bad for the nation if the executive branch were the exclusive preserve of Virginia plantation owners or Massachusetts merchants. Or Texas oilmen.
Ms. Miers' huge victory wasn't the only odd thing that happened to the Constitution in 2000, of course. But the good side is that if Jeb Bush calls me to be his running mate in 2008, there will be no problem. I can simply form the intent to live in New Jersey. Thanks partly to Ms. Miers, there is a precedent.
Jeez.
This IS disturbing...Miers tied to Phins Tix!?!
Should I call the kitty-cat in here?
This is trivial and as written hardly coherent.
Maybe Phins Tix is a code word for Texas Lottery Commission.
WELL, IF YOU DO GO THERE, YOU END UP WITH CHENEY AS V-P, EVEN WITHOUT THE TEXAS VOTES.
Besides, residency is and always has been largely a matter of intent, and the Constitution does not say how long one must inhabit a State so as to qualify as an inhabitant thereof.
Cheney has owned a home in Wyoming for 40 years.
OK, now post Blackburn's article about Hillary not being a New York resident when she ran for Senate...
What? He didn't write one? Go figure.
But Lieberman would not have enough electoral votes to win, so it would have been thrown to the Senate, where Cheney would have won anyways.
I had to look at the date on the article. Seems to me that something like this happened five or so years ago. What a coincidence. But then it wasn't connected to the "Phins Tix Ads!" Now it must be series.
...and for those of us who use English as our first language?
The Constitution is clear. The Texan electors would of had to choose somebody else. Liberman would not have enough electorial votes to win, so the Senate would vote on it. There is no doubt who would have won.
Too bad your link leads to a dead end.
bornatroll!
I don't know what Phins Tix is, but after reading your about page, I would like to say Et Cum Spiritu Tuo.
That author is an idiot. The same-state rule was included in both the original Constitution and in the 12th Amendment not because the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid the presidency and VP both falling in the hands of "Virginia plantation owners," but bacause they wanted to ensure that electors didn't just choose two local guys instead of candidates with national stature. If the Framers of the Constitution had wanted to prevent the President and VP from being from the same state, they would have included as a requirement that the VP be from a different state than the President.
So the author is stuck on stupid when he says that Cheney's VP candidacy violated the "spirit" of the same-state rule (he obviously can't argue that the candidacy violates the text of the rule because Cheney moved his primary residency back to Wyoming before the election and there was no doubt that he had been domiciled in Wyoming for decades), since the spirit of the rule is by no means "the president and VP can't be from the same state." Frankly, I don't see the point of writing that crappy op-ed just to criticize Miss Miers. Aren't there a million other ways that he could criticize the Miers nomination without proving to the world what an idiot he is.
Miers has Dolphins season tickets??? Is she a Ricky Williams fan?
Miers did not do anyone a "favor".
Even if one were to assume (in error) that the lawyer's (Miers) argument was wrong, or false, it is the courts that must, and do, determine that, not the plaintiff or the defendent.
Apparently none of the courts found a problem with Miers argument, and that has nothing to do with any "favor" that she did.
Of course if one is in need of conspiracy theories, then why not this one, it's as incoherent as most of them.
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