An Elected King
Posted by
Kevin
I don’t understand why this is not getting more attention:
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statutes inconsistent with the Constitution must yield. The basic principle of our system of government means that no President, merely by assenting to a piece of legislation, can diminish the scope of the President’s constitutional power. . . .
Just as one President may not, through signing legislation, eliminate the Executive Branch’s inherent constitutional powers, Congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority. The Constitution grants the President the inherent power to protect the nation from foreign attack, and Congress may not impede the President’s ability to perform his constitutional duty.“ (citations omitted).
This is an unapologetic brief for allowing the Executive the powers of a King. They are claiming for themselves the right to make or disregard laws, meaning that the Legislature is no longer relevant, and they claim for themselves the right to determine when a law is constitutional or not, relegating the Judiciary to irrelevancy. They intend to make the laws, they intend to interpret the laws, and they already execute the laws. They want, in a literal sense, to return to a mode of government that existed prior to the Magna Carta. If they are allowed to get away with this, and every sign is that they will, as the GOP Senators cannot seem to run away from their constitutional obligations fast enough, then it is the effective end of the constitutional system of government. One branch will have been allowed to slip free of the checks and balances that where designed to protect the country from tyrants. The Executive Branch will have absolute authority, able to do as it wishes without check or oversight. Since it will determine what is and is not Constitutional, it is the final arbitrator of what rights you already have. This Administration, just as a reminder, has already decided that it has the right to hold American citizens indefinitely without charge, trial, or access to the outside world.
More importantly, once this has been established, this principle will lay there, waiting for the next President whose sense of entitlement is larger than his common sense and understanding of the Constitution. In the next couple of years, we are going to decide if we are citizens with rights and a functioning system of checks and balances or serfs who merely get to choose who the King will be every four years. Since the GOP shows no sign of doing anything to stop this dangerous nonsense, the only real hope is a Democratic controlled Congress willing to hold the Administration accountable.
We pardoned Nixon and now thirty years later, his disciples and heirs are back. They don’t believe in limits on the power of the Office of President and they obviously won’t give up trying to achieve their dreams, so they are going to have to be stopped. And that means a Congress unwilling to look away as they pretend that the Constitution does not actually contain any checks and balances.
UPDATE: Ted, in the comments, asks why I think the Justice Department is claiming the right to interperate the laws and whether or not they are Constitutional. It is in the link, but I should have explicitely quoted it. This is from the same set of answers the Justice Department provided the Senators:
n order to execute the laws and defend the Constitution, the President must be able to interpret them. The interpretation of law, both statutory and constitutional, is therefore an indispensable and well established government function. . . .
The President’s power to interpret the law is particularly important when he is engaged in a task — such as the direction of the operations of an armed conflict — that falls within the special and unique competence of the Executive Branch.
I should have been more explicit in my argument and I apologize for that.
Kevin: “This is an unapologetic brief for allowing the Executive the powers of a King. They are claiming for themselves the right to make or disregard laws, meaning that the Legislature is no longer relevant, and they claim for themselves the right to determine when a law is constitutional or not, relegating the Judiciary to irrelevancy.”
Why do you lie so much?
Comment 3/27/2006
Kevin,
Could you please cite where, in the piece you blogged, the authors claim what Fred objected to above. I, for one, can’t find it. Maybe it was in a section you didn’t include?
Comment 3/27/2006
Ted: “I, for one, can’t find it. Maybe it was in a section you didn’t include?”
Fred: Don’t hold your breath. Kevin has lied about this over and over. His hate guides his lies.
Comment 3/27/2006
Read the linked post, if you need more information. Kevin’s statement is pretty straight-forward and quite fair. The conclusion is drawn directly from the words of the administration. They claim that even if they sign a law it does not apply to them if they decide it conflicts with their interpretation of Presidential authority. Thus do they claim the role of the judiciary and pre-empt the legislature.
Comment 3/27/2006
Ted:
It’s right there in the cited piece:
The basic principle of our system of government means that no President, merely by assenting to a piece of legislation, can diminish the scope of the President’s constitutional power
In other words, no law can limit the powers of the president, even if the president himself signed that law. Actually, it’s not all that controversial a statement, as far as it goes; it’s the implication that’s bad. And that implication is that it should be the executive branch (rather than the judiciary) who gets to decide which powers are unchangeable by legislation.
I’ve been saying this since the whole wiretap thing broke: the argument must be that the law as written never applied to the president; if it does apply to the president, but is unconstitutional, only the courts can make that call. The president / executive branch can’t unilaterally decide “this law is unconstitutional” and ignore it.
(There are circumstances under which, in the interests of national security, I’d expect a president to break the law, but I’d then expect him to admit he broke the law, explain why he did so, and let the public and the congress judge him; but to say “this law doesn’t apply to me” is to place oneself above the law…)
Comment 3/27/2006
Ted
I should have probably quoted more, to make things clear. This is from the same set of answers that the Justice Department provided Senators:
I think that’s pretty clear — they claim for themselves the right to interpret the law as well. When you combine that with their abality to decide form themselves what they can and cannot do, I think its clear that they are intent on elevating the Executive much beyond the checks and balances.
Comment 3/27/2006
I guess I am dense. I just don’t equate
“no President … can diminish the scope of the President’s constitutional power”
with
“They intend to make the laws, they intend to interpret the laws”
In the first case, the claim is the President has certain powers, granted by the Constitution, that can not be taken away - even by the President.
The second case is, well, Kevin.
And tgirsh, I don’t agree with you that the statement somehow implies discretion on the part of the President as to which powers are unchangeable. It reads to me that no President can diminish the scope of the executive. Note that I am basing my opinion on the text provided, and not on anything else.
All of which might lead one to the conclusion that I support Bush’s move to increase the power of the executive. I do not. But I do try to keep the situation in perspective.
Comment 3/27/2006
Ted
The interpretation of law, both statutory and constitutional,
This means that they decide what a law means, regardless of the language of the bill (see the signing statements on torture bill for an example, or the more recent one attached to the PATRIOT ACT renewal) and that they decide what is constitutional.
That takes care of interpret, I think.
Congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority.
They may ignore the law. That is all that means — COngress can put no limitations on their activity, so they can ignore the law. That takes care of ignore the law, I think.
Make the law is in the combination of the two. they claim that Congress cannot tell them what to do, they claim they have inherent powers that Congress cannot touch or regulate, and they claim that they should decide which of their actions are Constitutional. If that isn’t making the law, then I am not sure what would be.
Comment 3/27/2006
I am much more inclined to agree with you now that the additional section has been added to the blog. Thanks.
Comment 3/27/2006
Kevin:
To pick a nit, that depends on what constitutes “inherent presidential authority.” The important question here isn’t whether or not this is the case (I actually think it is), but who gets to decide what constitutes “inherent presidential authority.” And the answer to that question is “not the executive branch.” If the executive branch gets to decide that, then there can be no meaningful limitation on executive power.
In my estimation, it is within the power of the Congress to place limitations on the executive branch, except where those limitations run afoul of the Constitution. But even in those very limited cases, it is the job of the courts, not the executive branch, to make that determination.
I think clarity of terminology is important here. And that’s what’s so subversive to me about this. The idea that there are certain presidential powers that the president or congress cannot unilaterally invalidate isn’t, I think, all that controversial. The controversial part (and just plain wrong part) is that the executive branch gets to unilaterally decide (or “interpret”) what those are.
Comment 3/28/2006