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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Boys, boys, boys, can't we have a calm and rational conversation? Oh wait, I forgot that this is Politics and calm and rational have never cast a shadow on this particular venue.
After reading and rereading the various posts here, I think that I see the point of irritation here - the Executive branch is not expressly responsible for interpreting the Constitution. However, in the real world, it goes on every day and it has since the day the Constitution was ratified. Every law has to be applied to the real world, and the Executive branch is the one that has to figure out how to do that. For instance, if Congress passes a law stating that "no person in a yellow personal vehicle engaged in interstate commerce shall make a left turn on alternate Thursdays", the Executive branch is the one stuck with figuring out if that means that a truck with yellow racing stripes is an ambiturner (thank you, Derek Zoolander).
The Executive branch also has the option of saying that this law is too much of a hassle and that they're going to focus their energy on more important things, like fighting the revolution that dksuddeth is always aggitating about. Congress would be left with the choice of repealing the law, leaving it alone or retooling it into something that the Executive branch wants and needs. Its pretty rare for Congress to waste time passing laws that the Executive branch doesn't at least pay lip service to and say that they want and need the legislation.
Dksuddeth, can you give an example of the USSC declaring a law constitutional and telling the Executive branch to enforce it followed by the Executive then declaring the law still to be unconstitutional? I've never heard of such a blatant disregard for the separation of powers and I wonder if it ever happened or if you were just making a point.
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the_jazz, as a policy matter, the executive branch may do the things you're discussing, but they don't get to create legislation and render constitutional decisions about their actions that are binding. and this is exactly dksuddeth's point: that the executive branch can create [legitimately] policy/law in face of congressional proceedings via "signing statements" and that the president, through his sole discretion, can act or not act based on his view of the constitutionality of a piece of legislation. that's not true either.
your example speaks to the enforcement of a piece of legislation due to pragmatism, not constitutionality. There is nothing alllowing the president to sign a law into existence and THEN write below it, but in some instances, at my sole discretion, I will disregard it. the presumption of constitionality of congressional legislation used to bleed all the way over to the courts, only until Marbury did the court extend its ability to "override" this presumption of constitutionality and ability of judicial review of congress.
two problems with what's going on here: 1) there isn't any constitutional basis for the president to interpret constitionality of laws and selectively apply them and 2) if that were the case, then we would already have had a police state since the government's inception
what is your working definition of a police state? the one I am most familiar would be when enforcement ("police") entities make laws, interpret them, and then enforce them. and that's why these three "duties" were split between three branches of government in ours.
and from my view, I was speaking calmly and rationally, so please contain your condescencion and speak to me with respect.