Posted on 09/22/2007 9:18:05 PM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
The following is a letter written by Mitt Romney to the Washington Establishment. It is without a doubt one of the boldest statements made by a presidential candidate. As a Republican he says it exactly right. You may not support him, but if you are a true conservative you are going to agree with him. Many conservatives have already seen this letter and are taking it to heart.
Romney has been praised by many conservatives for taking this strong step toward getting our nation back on track. Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006), had this to say about Romney’s stance:
At last, a top-tier presidential candidate is paying attention to the discouraged, disheartened, and disillusioned base of the Republican Party. I commend Mitt Romney for urging the GOP leadership to return to its conservative values.By releasing an ad chastising the Republican leadership for its excessive spending, immigration amnesty, and ethical slackness, Governor Romney has taken a small but significant step toward reclaiming the GOP for the grassroots conservatives who are its backbone.
I hope you will read Governor Romney's Letter and Watch the ad in its entirety.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.virginianfederalist.com ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,2123195,00.html
Or do you just have a hate on for the Mormons?
(Purely rhetorical question as I wouldn't presume or care to enlighten you on anything.)
What EV leaves out is in some situations legislation over ruled, so Romney had as governor had to obey the Law at the time!
EV forgets there are checks and balance and checks and one is not always free to act as they wish.
But what does that matter to one who thinks because it is God desire it over rules!
That is not how the Lord operates if it were so we would not be having these struggles.
God would just force his will on those who once upon a time he gave free will too and that would be the end of story!
Right - otherwise, why would the church itself have as it's web site:
LDS.org ?
Unfortunately, you're fact-challenged. The court, acting with no legal or constitutional basis, ordered the legislative branch to pass a law legalizing gay marriage. The legislature rightfully ignored them. That's when Mitt Romney stepped in and implemented gay marriage in Massachusetts, in violation of his sworn oath to uphold the constitution of the Commonwealth.
The legislature checked an out-of-control court, until Governor Romney used his executive power to join with the lawless court and check the legislature.
THAT is what actually occurred.
The Governor’s New Clothes; How Mitt Romney Brought Same-Sex Marriage To America
Part VII - Mass. Same-Sex "Marriages" Are Legally Void
Massachusetts same-sex “marriages” are, therefore, legally void and Governor Romney was and remains under a Constitutional and sworn duty to acknowledge this reality.
“Massachusetts since 1780 has been governed by a written Constitution, wherein the various organs of government are enumerated and their powers defined. The people themselves and all branches of their government, legislative, executive, and judicial alike, are bound by it and owe to it implicit obedience. . . . Since the people have themselves adopted the Constitution with its amendments for their government, they are bound by the provisions and conditions which they themselves have placed in it[. For instance,] when they seek to enact laws by direct popular vote they must do so in strict compliance with those provisions and conditions.” Sears v. Treasurer and Reciever General, 327 Mass. 310, 320-22 (1951). Likewise, when the SJC and the Governor act, they must (not unlike the people) “do so in strict compliance” with the words of the Constitution.[128]
“[I]t is always to be presumed that a coordinate branch of the government has acted within the limits of its constitutional authority, until the contrary shall clearly and satisfactorily appear.” [129] When any one of the branches of government acts outside its Constitutional authority, those unlawful actions are null and void.[130] For example, the legislature cannot supplant the judicial function.[131] Similarly, the executive cannot perform a legislative function.[132] The same applies to unconstitutional acts of the Judiciary[133] as well. Exceeding the scope of legal authority granted to or overreaching the jurisdiction bestowed upon a court, is a nullity.[134] It is quite clear that the act of granting a license must be annulled when the law does not permit its issuance.[135]
Simply because the SJC ignored the explicit words of the Constitution in no way required Governor Romney to do the same.[136] Article 30 creates a separation of powers among the branches of government[137] and our democracy depends on this separation.[138] No branch of government is required to seek from another branch permission to assert its Constitutional duties.[139] To the contrary, when one branch of government attempts to perform an unconstitutional function that it has no right to perform, as the SJC has done in Goodridge, it is the duty of the other branches to check that power and prevent its misuse and usurpation.[140] Even the doctrine of stare decisis does not require the Court to be bound by its own prior illogical decisions.[141]
For separation of powers to mean anything then, it is fully within the discretion and authority of the Governor to not honor (i.e., ignore) the void and unconstitutional actions of the other branches of government – in the very same way that the SJC ignores the legislature’s unconstitutional actions as well as the illegal actions of the executive branch.[142] The SJC cannot, through the use of an unauthorized/unconstitutional declaration, prevent the Governor from performing his responsibilities to the people to execute the laws of the Commonwealth.[143]
Each branch is separate, and each is equal. Separation of powers is not some meaningless, abstract, wishful thought free of any practical application.[144] Rather when observed, it ensures that we remain a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”[145] Each branch may and sometimes must act independently.[146] Otherwise the doctrine of separation of powers is a meaningless concept.[147]
This is self-evident, but the Court’s majority was confident that neither the Legislature, nor the press, nor the civic culture of the Commonwealth would have the will or desire to call their bluff. Nor, as it turned out, would the governor, who was bound by his oath to the Constitution to reject the Goodridge ruling as meaningless, at the very least until the Legislature rescinded the existing marriage law in order to please the court. But only a very small minority of legislators were willing to even consider voting to establish homosexual marriage. Thus when Governor Romney ordered state officials to begin issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples, he was going far beyond what the Court, the Legislature, and the people expected him to do. More than that, he was violating the Constitution he had sworn to defend. Not even the Marshall court majority implied in even the faintest way that it fell upon the governor as chief executive to ignore the still binding law of the Commonwealth and issue orders that violated that law and violated the Constitution’s Separation of Powers. To the constitutionally ignorant (which now includes Justice Roderick Ireland of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court),[148] the governor’s actions had and have today the appearance of being forced by the Goodridge ruling. Governor Romney’s public statements have repeatedly cloaked his unconstitutional actions as a mere carrying out of the law. In fact, it is not possible to even argue such, since Massachusetts law to this day defines marriage just as it has for well over two centuries.
Governor Romney acquiesced in the SJC decision and actively authorized same-sex “marriage.” Resembling what the Emperor saw in the mirror, Romney’s reliance on the SJC’s decision to justify his subsequent actions, therefore, was based on nothing.
Although he does not like to take credit for it, on April 26, 2003, Governor Romney, without being authorized by the legislature ordered the terms on the official marriage certificate changed[149] and in May he ordered the town clerks, even ones with religious conscience concerns, to solemnize the marriages.[150] In so doing, Governor Romney failed “to act in strict compliance with the words of the Constitution” and failed to execute the laws of the Commonwealth. He also placed the public officials in criminal jeopardy, but for the fact that he will not enforce the marriage statute, which prohibits the certification of and solemnization of marriages that violate the marriage statute.
The truth is, Governor Romney knew the SJC had violated the Constitution.[151] In a Wall Street Journal editorial he said:
With the Dred Scott case, decided four years before he took office, President Lincoln faced a judicial decision that he believed was terribly wrong and badly misinterpreted the U.S. Constitution. Here is what Lincoln said: "If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." By its decision, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts circumvented the Legislature and the executive, and assumed to itself the power of legislating. That's wrong.[152]
Romney, therefore, also knew he had no duty, nor any legal power, to change the documents or issue marriage certificates. Indeed, his duty was to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth and, therefore, to do the exact opposite of what he did.[153]
So then, what is the legal status of the licenses that have allegedly been certified and the “marriages” that have purportedly been solemnized without legal authority? The answer lies in the venerable legal principle that one can only receive the title (power, authority, ownership) that one has been given; that is, a person can stand in no greater position, nor obtain greater ownership than that which was transferred.[154] Nemo dat qui non habet (“You cannot give what you do not have”). Thus, no matter how many licenses the town clerks churn out, neither the statute, nor the Constitution permit same-sex “marriage.” Governor Romney’s lack of power and his failure to execute the laws of Massachusetts means that “no valid [marriage certificate] has been issued.[155] . . . Only by preserving this fundamental principle can constitutional government be preserved and orderly progress assured.”[156] “It would be astonishing and intolerable if the [words] so carefully inserted in the [Constitution] could be disregarded by [the Supreme Judicial Court and the Governor] without consequence and so in effect turned into mere admonitions and recommendations. The Constitution is not ordinarily treated in that manner.” Sears v. Treasurer and Reciever General, 327 Mass. 310, 321-22 (1951).
The power the Governor lacked (both because the SJC had no authority to authorize any “marriage” that contradicts the word embedded in the Constitution and because the statute continues to prohibit same-sex “marriage” since it has not been changed, nor repealed), makes the “marriage” certificates, that have been and are being handed out by town clerks to same-sex couples, void. They were void from their inception because there was and there continues to be no legal authority to issue them.[157] Couples holding those same-sex “marriage” licenses hold nothing because issuing “marriage” certificates (pursuant to Chapter 207) to same-sex couples is a legal impossibility.[158] There was no authority to issue the certificates nor to solemnize the relationships and, therefore, they are void.[159]
For you to be correct, some law or constitutional provision must exist legalizing gay marriage in the Commonwealth.
Good luck finding one, because it still to this day does not exist. Both the court and Governor Romney acted lawlessly. And I mean that word, "lawless," in its most literal sense.
Show us the law, restornu.
Additional information on this subject for those with the guts to educate themselves:
http://robertpaine.blogspot.com/
Yeah, “thechurchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints.org” just doesn’t have quite the same pop, does it?
~”The legislature checked an out-of-control court, until Governor Romney used his executive power to join with the lawless court and check the legislature.”~
You make a strong case. I’ll have to look into it more. Thanks for the info.
Sorry you miss understood I included you in the last post because you were part of the original coversation nothing more!
Thanks, Resty. I’ll take a look.
Did you actually read the links, or just assume (or as I hope is not the case) just lie about everything.
At least one of those links uses the works of Mormon leaders compared to the words of the Bible to make their case.
The pernicious doctrine of judicial supremacy is killing us. (And in the case of Terri Schiavo, this is quite literally true.)
Until we begin to elect chief executives and legislators who actually understand the co-equal nature of our republican form of government, and who have the courage to confront the courts when and where they act unconstitutionally, the transformation of our free republic into a judicial oligarchy will continue.
Thomas Jefferson:
"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches." - letter to W. H. Torrance, 1815
"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force." - letter to William Johnson, 1823
"But, you may ask, if the two departments [i.e., federal and state] should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best." - letter to John Cartwright, 1824
"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." - letter to Abigail Adams, 1804
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." - letter to William C. Jarvis, 1820
"In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." - letter to Spencer Roane, 1819
"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." - letter to Edward Livingston, 1825
"My construction of the Constitution is . . . that each department is truly independent of the others and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially where it is to act ultimately and without appeal." - letter to Spencer Roane, 1819
Chief Justice John Marshall, in the closing paragraphs of Marbury vs. Madison:
It is also not entirely unworthy of observation that in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the constitution itself is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the constitution, have that rank.
Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
I did see a link!
David French’s argument is weak, weak, weak.
~”David French’s argument is weak, weak, weak.”~
How so?
Because, all he really argues is that the court never ordered the legislature to do anything.
Which is utterly irrelevent to the fact that the court and the Governor both acted with no legal or constitutional authority. Their imposition of gay marriages was, as Judge Bork said, “”completely untethered from the state or federal constitutions and from the rule of law.”
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