Posted on 12/05/2001 4:53:56 AM PST by Starmaker
Where are all those strict-constructionist Republicans who've been complaining about activist judges who don't respect the fact that the U.S. Constitution gives "all legislative powers" to the Congress? Don't those Republicans realize that it is just as unconstitutional to transfer legislative powers to the executive branch?
When it comes to legislative powers over trade matters, the U.S. Constitution is precise. Article I, Section 8, expressly grants Congress the sole power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations" and "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises."
The Bush Administration and some Republicans are trying to pass Fast Track, a bill to unconstitutionally transfer those commerce powers to the executive branch. Fast track would give the President and his appointees a blank check to make trade deals with foreign countries.
This isn't the first time that misguided Republicans tried to do an end-run around the Constitution by unconstitutionally transferring power to the President. During the 1980s and 1990s, we had to endure the persistent efforts of some Republicans to impose the Line Item Veto, which was patently unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court finally so ruled on June 25, 1998.
Newt Gingrich made the Line Item Veto a hallmark of the Contract With America and, for years, the Gingrich Republicans tried to make it a litmus test for fiscal conservatism. There was just one little problem: it was unconstitutional because it transferred to the President the power to change laws that Congress had passed.
In the hope of concealing the shady procedure of Fast Track, the Bush Administration has given Fast Track a sweeter-smelling name: Trade Promotion Authority. But Fast Track is exactly what this bill should be called because it will rush executive-branch agreements through Congress with mandatory deadlines, severely limited debate, no amendments allowed, only the chance to vote aye or nay, and rigging the process to evade the two-thirds treaty requirement in the Senate.
It's one thing for the President to push his agenda. But it's unfortunate that he has resorted to name-calling of those who disagree, as he did when he labeled them "isolationists" at his June 20 meeting with the Business Roundtable.
No doubt the managers of Fast Track in Congress will sanctimoniously use such arguments as "Don't you trust our President?" The response should be, Yes, we trust him to do what he said he would do, and he said his high priority under Fast Track will be to implement the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement, which would extend NAFTA to cover 34 Latin American countries.
When Bush signed the Declaration of Quebec City on April 22, he gave a "commitment to hemispheric integration and national and collective responsibility for improving the economic well-being and security of our people." It is clear that "our people" means all the people of the Western Hemisphere.
Bush pledged that the United States will "build a hemispheric family on the basis of a more just and democratic international order." He agreed to "the promotion of a Connectivity Agenda for the Americas (to) facilitate the beneficial integration of the hemisphere."
The Quebec Declaration is filled with United Nations doubletalk such as "sustainable development," "interdependent," "realization of human potential," "civil society," "international organizations," "reducing poverty," and "greater economic integration."
The media have never reported any public opinion polls on whether the American people want to be "integrated" with third-world, low-wage Latin American countries. The media don't ask questions when they don't want to report the answers.
Do we want to "integrate" our economies and currencies with Latin American countries, or assume the "national responsibility" to improve their "economic well-being"? Do we think that joining "a hemispheric family" with countries that do not respect the Rule of Law will give us "a more just and democratic international order"?
Even though Fast Track has not been voted on yet, the Bush Administration is behaving as though it has. Bush's U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick just met in Qatar with 142 World Trade Organization countries, where he agreed to submit the United States to international rules to invalidate our anti-dumping laws that protect our industries against foreign governments dumping their goods on us at unfairly low prices.
An earlier version of Fast Track was in effect when Bill Clinton rammed NAFTA and GATT through Congress in 1993 and 1994. Hidden in the 22,000-page GATT was the 14-page charter putting us in the World Trade Organization, where we have one vote, the European Union 15 votes, and the Third World 80 votes.
Fast Track advocates are mute about the failure of NAFTA and GATT to live up to their rosy predictions. To most Americans, the most visible result is the current plan to flood our highways with Mexican trucks that haven't passed U.S. inspection for safety and insurance.
It would be a constitutional travesty for Congress to surrender what one federal court called "the unmistakably legislative power" to impose, modify, or continue tariffs and import restrictions. Fast track violates our separation of powers, diminishes American sovereignty, and infringes on the rights of Americans to engage in the trade of our choice.
America was isolationist and protectionist for most of her history. You may have heard of an advisor to the early Republic, Friedrich List, who wrote National System of Political Economy. Lincoln also advocated protective tariffs--one of the few things I agree with him on. That is America's tradition, and the Republican Party used to be for protecting jobs and industry.
More reason why there needs to be a Constitutional amendment mandating periodic Senate reconfirmation for the Justices every 8 years, and Congress needs to restrict the Court's appellate jurisdiction in areas it has been known to legislate from the bench in.
I know. When you have nasty people like that in charge, you end up with things like the conservative majority violating the Constitution in order to steal a presidential election for their compatriots. (runs for cover.....)
No, I don't like Al Gore. I was just making a point I've made before. People scream judicial activism ("rewriting the Constitution") for decisions they don't like, and then turn around and claim those same nine "venal, self serving lawyers" did the right thing when they agree with the decision.
Don't forget, when you're screaming activism, there's always millions of others applauding the decision, and vice versa. Just realize that under our system, what they say is Constitutional is by definition Constitutional, no matter how much we may cry. Besides, I think those people know a lot more about Constitutionality (and they have lots of clerks to help them) than any of us will ever know. Well, I'm not so sure about Clarence Thomas.
"Precedent, or case law is not law at all for two entities in our judicial system. Two entities in our system are unbound by the doctrine of stare decisis. Do you know which entities those are?" If Congress doesn't like the way case law went, they can make a new law to get around it. Think of cases such as Communications Decency Act (AKA Internet censorship law). It was called too vague and overbroad, so Congress came out with Child Online Protection Act (AKA CDA II) to get around that.
Of course, the Supreme Court has reversed the precedent of itself and lower courts on several occasionas. Still, some precedents are so tight, and have been supported so many times, that there's little chance of a reversal ever happening because of the whim of current politics.
The Supreme Court makes rulings as though they are bound by precedent at times, and the judiciary has been on a campaign to hide from jurors the fact that they may rule as they please, judging the law as well as the facts of the case.
Oops, gotta read more slowly, I didn't see the "judicial system" part.
"The Supreme Court makes rulings as though they are bound by precedent at times" They're not bound, but they don't break precedent lightly either. I agree 100% on jury veto though.
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