This Week’s line-up of numbskulls and idjits is entirely composed of White House folks! Get ready for a buffet of BS so lavish that it makes Martha Johnson’s spending spree look like a Superbowl smorgasbord after half time!
President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”
It would be shocking to hear someone who was studying for the U.S. Constitution test propose that the Supreme court, the head of the judicial branch, should have less power in oversight over the other branches of government because it is composed of members that receive their positions through methods other than direct election.
To hear this sentiment expressed by a Harvard Law graduate and former University of Chicago professor of constitution law simply beggars the imagination.
But it happened just the other day. Our president (who also does not get directly elected), a man with an impressive legal education, decided that because he might not get his way, he should start attacking the Supreme Court… again.
I stress the word “might” here. The ruling is months away. He is saying these things on the chance that the Supreme Court will strike down his beloved individual mandate, a statue so blatantly unconstitutional it barely deserves to have made it to the Supreme Court, and possibly the entire Affordable Care Act along with it.
In particular I like his insistence that the Supreme Court would be taking an unprecedented step in striking down a law they deemed unconstitutional. Between 1789 and 2002 the Supreme Court has overturned 158 Acts of Congress. This is one of the most important, though possibly not the most popular, functions of the Supreme Court and is fundamental for maintaining the balance between the branches of government.
The simple fact that the majority of Congress votes for a law and the president signs it does not make it Constitutional. If that was true then the Communications Decency Act, a piece of garbage legislation from 1996 passed by a much larger margin (by a Republican-controlled Congress) than the Affordable Car Act and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, would still be around.
But it isn’t. The Supreme Court saw what an egregious overreach of power this Act was and threw it out.
A Constitutional scholar like our president should know better, and I am willing to bet he does, however it does not change the fact that he’s used to getting his way. These sorts of problems don’t happen back home in good ‘ol Chicago, where you can become mayor despite not living in the city or strip people of First Amendment rights for no reason at all. You just gotta grease the right palms, call in a few favors (making sure no one gets you on tape) and get it done.
Thankfully the rest of the country doesn’t work that way. If Washington ran like Chicago, our rights would have been shredded decades ago.
3 Comments
Another great post, Theo!
Whats more the 5th circuit wants a 3 page single spaced statement from the Justice Dept ensuring that Obama understands that they do have authority to overturn fed laws..they want it by Thurs noon. My question is what happens if Holder ignores it….
I had high hopes for Eric Holder, but his justice department has been such a tremendous mess.I get the sad feeling that nothing would happen. The Justice Department is so absurdly powerful that I doubt they feel any pressing need to respond to an entity as lowly as the 5th circuit. This administration’s low opinion of the Judicial Branch illustrates this point brilliantly. I have no doubt there’s a small mountain of roadblocks they can put up to delay or entirely eliminate this spanking the judiciary is trying to hand out.Still, it will be fun to watch what happens. I’d bet there’s a lot of guys and gals burning the midnight oil at 950 Pennsylvania Ave Northwest…