Posted on 06/04/2007 12:37:00 PM PDT by jrooney
Jefferson's Indictment is being shown live now on Fox News!
The Congress is authorized to "punish members". It is un-necessary to further elaborate on that.
Now, get back to that ground glass, and don't grind it too fine. We want some real blood here.
‘Twere better if he were perp-kicked down the front steps of the Capitol.
Note, the Constitution specifically speaks to congress being in session. Upon the gavel banging for a recess, the House is no longer in session. At that time, agents could cuff and march off Jefferson. Otherwise, a congressman could thrawt arrest for any alleged crime other than those specifically listed solely by remaining in the House or Senate.
I highly doubt any court, even the 9th circut would hold that Justice has no authority, under any circumstances to search a congressmans office who is under criminal investigation and for which a warrant has been issued.
You might want to check that, I could be wrong. But I do believe he was convicted prior to expulsion.
Trafficant was expelled from Congress on July 29, 2002. He was convicted on April 11, 2002. So They didn't expel him until 3 and a half months after his conviction.
Traficant didn't really want to go to jail you know so he would have pressed the issue as far as it could be pressed.
BTW, Traficant was my favorite Democrat politician.
Actually, Traficant was the best of the lot.
Oh great, that’s all we need is a Congress that can’t get legalese straight.
Yep. What's with this? It's like rolling credits for best boy and gaffer. No one cares, no one wants to hear it, it's not relevant...except when they play it back to themselves over and over and over on the Tivo. I am sick of the self-congratulatory trend of turning official statements into a departmental awards banquet. It's not an Oscar. It's an indictment.
You are the one who tried to muddy a discussion of the warranted seizure of documents from a Congressman's office by switching to a discussion of detaining Congressmen about to vote for questioning.
The two are completely different - and only one is obviated by the Constitution.
The rationale behind the Separation of Powers, and the sanctity of the precincts of Congress precedes the current 1790 Constitution.
The rationale was that the Legislature would be able to operate smoothly and independently of the Executive and Judiciary - not that the Legislature was to be a corrupt fiefdom immune to the laws of the land.
That concept of separating powers does indeed date to before our 1789 Constitution - as I said already, it dates to the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England: a shift in constitutional law in England which reversed the regal absolutism of 1603-1649 and 1660-1688 and the legislative absolutism of 1649-1660.
The separation of powers does not date back to the execution of Charles I in 1649 - that event saw a shift to parliamentary absolutism which, although you evidently favor such a system in which representatives rule without checks of any kind, has nothing to do with the separation of powers.
The judiciary has always interpreted this to mean disorderly behavior engaged in during Congressional business - a cop is allowed to arrest a Congressman if he gets into a bar fight in his district while Congress is out of session. He is not immune from the law.
But beyond such disorderly behavior, the Executive and Judiciary are allowed to punish representatives for treason, felony and breach of the peace even if the representative is in the midst of conducting official business (Article I, Section 6, paragraph 1).
And again, this is moot, since Justice did not even try to exercise its Constitutional right to arrest Jefferson on the House floor for a felony in the midst of a vote if they so chose.
What it did was seize, with a warrant, documentary evidence in a felony criminal proceeding from Jefferson's office.
Article I, Section 5, clause 2 ~ it's all in there. Seems to me a court is doing a bit of reaching to interpret that piece since it's up to Congress to interpret the words that apply to it. I'd imagine that if Congress thought a judge was out of line and was interfering in a way that really bothered them they'd could just dispose of the judge.
Always remember, the Founders were acutely aware of the threat of tyranny and set the government system up so that deference is always paid to the more representative body or structure. For example, revenue bills must start in the House. The other day when McCain convinced the other Senators to stick a revenue clause in that abominable class peonage bill (immigration reform) he, and they, knew they'd just set the bill up for rejection by the House ~ the more representative body.
BTW, neither the Executive nor the Judiciary are considered "representative", and are a source of possible tyranny. In conflicts between the House and the Executive regarding the status of the members of the House, the Constitution clearly establishes the House as the superior body.
Remember, to stick Jim Traficant in jail the House had to eject him.
The crime is against the Congress, and therefore the United States. It is called treason. No doubt neither you nor the Nancy woman want to start a national discussion on treason ~ you have your reasons of course, and she has her reasons, and we know what they are.
Nothing more. The stage for Parliamentary supremacy was definitely set the day they chopped old Charles I's head off.
Democracy proceeded in its development much faster after that.
If you hadn't noticed, though, Parliamentary supremacy is the current British standard.
Damn I thought “the Stain” the former Potus was finally gonna get his due...
Nope. You are trying to conflate the "disorderly behavior" of I Sec 5 with the "treason, felony and breach of the peace" of I Sec 6.
Seems to me a court is doing a bit of reaching to interpret that piece since it's up to Congress to interpret the words that apply to it.
The Constitution says that Congress has the authority to interpret the rules relating to their proceedings - they have no authority to interpret the law as it applies to their individual members outside of their proceedings.
I quote from III Sec 3:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. "
No sale.
No, the Glorious Revolution was a concession and abridgment of the monarchy's rights in favor of parliamentary interests.
The legal substance of the GR was that the parliament and not the monarch henceforth had the right to determine who the legitimate monarch was.
The stage for Parliamentary supremacy was definitely set the day they chopped old Charles I's head off.
Correct. But you are conflating "parliamentary supremacy" with "separation of powers" - one has nothing to do with the other. Whether the King or whether the Parliament possesses supreme power, the reality is that by possessing this supreme power unto themselves the power is, by definition, unseparated.
Democracy proceeded in its development much faster after that.
And the Framers specifically preferred a republican, as opposed to democratic form of government - i.e. a government in which powers were apportioned and separated into different branches.
If you hadn't noticed, though, Parliamentary supremacy is the current British standard.
Correct - and the increasingly coercive strictures on civil liberties under Parliament (specifically ASBOs, complete coercive disarmament of law-abiding citizens) demonstrate the flaws of parliamentary supremacy.
Congress is accountable to the Executive and to the Judiciary - otherwise Congress becomes a tyrannical monster.
As Plato pointed out long ago, one can have a tyranny of 500 or of one and it will still be a tyranny.
Parliaments are sources of tyranny.
The first modern dictatorships - Cromwell and Robespierre - were created by representative bodies.
Cromwell began his political career as the MP representing Huntingdon and Robespierre began his career as an Estates General representative for Arras.
Robespierre was elected to the EG and the Constituent Assembly. He became a member of the Committee of General Defense of the CA. When the CA voted to create a special Committee of Public Safety, he was the main spokesman of the CPS and he ordered the guillotining of approximately 40,000 citizens - mostly without trial.
If anyone imagines that the legislature is any less prone to tyranny than the executive, they are dreaming.
In the modern era, it seems, every time a legislature becomes the supreme organ of government - the Rump Parliament, the Constituent Assembly, the Council of Soviets - the result is a bloodbath characterized by political opponents of the ruling party being marked for assassination.
It's been much more often the case that tyranny has come from tyrants!
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