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To: BluesDuke
Blues, is a president that enforces laws he did not sign but has declared publicly he feels are unconstitutional violating his oath?
9 posted on 03/26/2002 8:31:28 PM PST by Texasforever
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To: Texasforever
Blues, is a president that enforces laws he did not sign but has declared publicly he feels are unconstitutional violating his oath?

I think the more proper question might be, does he have a duty according to his oath of office to challenge in the courts the Constitutionality of any law he might deem unconstitutional (we bear in mind the point that there are, wish though we might otherwise, laws enough that have ambiguous enough Constitutional grounding), for which purpose among others he has a solicitor general? To which the answer is, certainly, Yes, he can be seen as having such a duty, and by dint of both his own oath of office and that clause in the main body of the Constitution by which Mr. Madison's document is proclaimed, assented, and acknowledged as the Supreme Law of The Land.

However, that question is also irrelevant to the current CFR debate, since we are not dealing with a law on the book and signed by a predecessor President. We are dealing with a law freshly passed by both houses of Congress and yet awaiting the President's signature or veto, a law which required no rocket science or even a law degree to know is unconstitutional. (Which part of Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech did the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight on Crapola Hill not understand?)

There is much talk about the gamesmanship aspect in this tussle, but I think the critical point in that regard is this: Mr. Bush has approval ratings even Ronald Reagan could not claim as his own. He could well enough veto this package, state in plain enough language why this package deserves to go no further than his veto pen, and thus lay it right back on the heads of Crapola Hill to justify why they might yet see fit to override his veto (assuming the votes are there to do so) on behalf of a law that plainly enough traduces if not subverts the Constitution of the United States. And he has political capital with interest enough to make it stick, if he so chooses and finds the fortitude to do so, while exposing Congress concurrently as a body which, under its current configuration, cares not two pins whether this version of their petty little job protection program turns the Supreme Law of The Land into Silly Putty.
11 posted on 03/26/2002 8:54:18 PM PST by BluesDuke
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To: Texasforever
Blues, is a president that enforces laws he did not sign but has declared publicly he feels are unconstitutional violating his oath?

I've always wondered about that; on the one hand, it would seem to be a logical conclusion of the oath of office; on the other, a sitting president or someone else in the executive branch could refuse to implement any policy he disagreed with on the grounds that he believed it unconstitutional. One heartening thing about this situation, however, is that it favors conservatives and small-government activists: while you might get away with ignoring a policy set by the Congress, it would be harder to justify taking up a policy that the legislature has either vetoed or simply not debated. The system would seem to favor governmental inaction; hooray for us!

The issue brings to mind Andrew Jackson; two of the defining moments of his presidency involved his taking action based on what he thought the Constitution meant over the objections of Congress and the Supreme Court. In the first, he vetoed the charter of the Second Bank of the United States on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, the first time anyone had ever vetoed a bill on constitutional grounds. I've heard (but can't confirm) that the Supreme Court had already heard a challenge to a national bank and dismissed it.

On a heavier note, Jackson's policy of relocating the Cherokee Indians further west was brought to the Court's attention and found unconstitutional. His response: "The Supreme Court has made its decision. Now let them enforce it." He ignored the Court and proceeded to send away the Indians. Like it or not, this is probably the best case for establishing precedent that the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of the Constitution, although it has an obvious potential for trouble if abused.

12 posted on 03/26/2002 9:03:16 PM PST by NovemberCharlie
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