[McGavin999]

I, for one, do not buy it that it is neither Congress's nor the President's responsibility to know whether or not legislation is constitutional

Ah, I see, so you don't buy that whole "seperation of powers" thing that our forefathers meticulously wrote into the Constitution to make sure the legislative branch legislates, the executive branch executes, and the judicial branch determines the constitutionality of the laws? What a shame you weren't around when the document was drafted, I'm sure the founding fathers would have welcomed your rather unique thoughts on where they went wrong.

Read the Constitution!

[BluesDuke]

Ah, I see, so you don't buy that whole "seperation of powers" thing that our forefathers meticulously wrote into the Constitution to make sure the legislative branch legislates, the executive branch executes, and the judicial branch determines the constitutionality of the laws?

I was unaware that the Constitutional prescription of the separation of powers denies the mandate - which is implied in the very oath of office by which they are bound to support the Supreme Law of The Land - of Congress which writes the laws and the President who signs or vetoes the laws to know good and goddam well whether what they are writing or signing passes Constitutional muster before they legislate. The courts, to borrow a locution from National Review editor Rich Lowry, do not own the Constitution.

What a shame you weren't around when the document was drafted, I'm sure the founding fathers would have welcomed your rather unique thoughts on where they went wrong.

You don't really believe the Founding Fathers would deny that a Congress charged to write laws and a President charged to either sign or veto said laws as he deems fit have a mandate against writing and/or signing unconstitutional legislation, do you?

Read the Constitution!

I have read the Constitution. I have this nasty habit of reading it at least once a week, a habit I have maintained since childhood. Among other things, said Constitution - the Supreme Law of the Land - says quite explicitly, Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech. What part of that language escapes the comprehension of either Congress or the President? (And if it does escape their comprehension, should this not cause us alarm as to the elementary competence of the men and women we were thus fool enough to elect in the first place?)

But I have noticed as well that nowhere in Article III - which conjugates and enunciates the makeup and the mission of the Federal judiciary - is it granted that the Supreme Court is either the first or the sole court of determining the Constitutionality of laws. That grant of the Supreme Court being the final authority on the Constitutionality of the law arrived, if I recall correctly, by way of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Court in Marbury v. Madison.