There is also no provision for the Attorney General to decide which laws he will enforce and which he will not. Congress wrote 'em, president signed 'em ... if the AG don't like them, he, like any other citizen, must then do his best to get them overturned.
If the AG may arbitrarily decide which laws are or are not unconstitutional, which ones he feels he should enforce, which ones he should not, then any citizen may also decide arbitrarily which laws are or are not unconstitutional, which ones he should obey and which ones he should not.
That's not how the system works.
It is part of your responsibility when you're on jury duty to do precisely that.
I think Janet Reno subscribed to this theory of AG-ship. And we all know what a swell job she did.
FWIW, the AG is the legal agent of the Executive branch -- the job of which is to faithfully execute the laws and responsibilities of government. To do otherwise would result in what you said -- by picking and choosing, AG would usurp the powers of the legislative branch.
Then I assume you agree with me that Ashcroft should investigate and prosecute the many crimes of the Clinton administration and democRATS the last nine years?
I beg to differ. Others have noted the idea of seperation of powers, but it seems the obvious has been neglected: the Constitution specifically grants the Chief Executive the right to pardon. The AG serves at the Chief Executive's pleasure, so he obviously cannot institute a 'no prosecute' policy without it being approved of by his superior. The executive branch does indeed have the explicit power to give the legislative branch the finger over any law they choose and refuse to enforce it. 'Checks and balances', after all, is not a banking phrase.
To suggest that the executive branch is _compelled_ to enforce all laws is to ignore the power of pardon, and futhermore, it is to make the executive branch superfluous: such would have the effect of all laws written by congress being automatically enforced, i.e. with the executive branch as a subsidiary of the legislative. Clearly, if the framers had intended this to be the case, there would exist only the Legislative and Judicial branches of government. The executive branch is not compelled to enforce laws that it believes are wrong. The Legislative branch can impeach, but it cannot compel the executive branch to do anything.
Note, however, that it may not be in the best ineterests of an AG to ignore the unconstitutional law, at any rate. He might well be serving the Constitution better by getting the matter before the Supreme Court and having it declared unconstitutional. If disaster occurs, and the court rules differently, again, there is nothing that prevents the executive branch from pardoning the offender.
It _does_ work that way.
Thraka