Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Obama’s Iran End Run May Finally Stir Congressional Action
Word inside the Beltway is that President Obama intends to reach any deal involving Iranian nuclear weapons without involving Congress. Defenders of the Constitution may just sigh and throw up their hands (again). Obama’s plan only adds to the long list of unconstitutional executive actions taken by this administration: refusal to enforce federal laws on health care, immigration, welfare, and crime; refusal to defend federal laws in the courts; appointment of rump officers to federal bodies without Senate advice and consent; targeting of groups by ideology for tax or criminal investigation, and so on.
For the most part, President Obama has gotten away with it. He has been aided and abetted by his supporters in the Congress, the media, and the academy (who went ballistic over far more plausible claims of executive power by George W. Bush in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). This, however, might be the final straw that breaks Congress’s back.
Over the last century or more, our executive and legislative branches have understood the Treaty Clause — which requires two-thirds Senate approval for treaties negotiated by the President — to govern important international agreements. This has especially been the case for alliances and arms control agreements. Virtually every important arms control agreement of the post-World War II period (and before) has required Senate consent, including the Obama-era New START nuclear arms agreement with Russia. This was the result of bipartisan agreement in the Senate. Both Senator Jesse Helms and then-Senator Joe Biden demanded that the Bush Administration submit the Treaty of Moscow, heavily cutting nuclear arsenals, to the Senate in 2002.
Refusal to submit an Iranian nuclear deal to the Senate could finally spark a bipartisan response to defend the upper chamber’s prerogatives, and begin the hard road back to restoring the Constitution’s separation of powers. If Obama could commit the United States to nuclear obligations with the Iranians on his own, he could also make agreements with the Russians cutting nuclear arsenals even farther, hand off a sphere of influence to China in Asia, or enter more free trade agreements with his favorite nations abroad (like Iran). The loss of Senate prerogatives will do permanent damage to the Constitution’s design, which imposes a legislative check on important international agreements, and will infringe on the powers of individual senators from both parties. That might finally give Republicans and Democrats the incentive to join together to oppose this latest example of presidential indifference towards the Constitution.
Published in General
One minor point is for certain (unless the President’s principal conduit for information, Valerie Jarrett, is a complete idiot), it won’t happen before Nov. 4.
“May”. How low we’ve sunk.
I’m not sure it’s indifference he’s showing to the Constitution. Disdain, maybe. I still can’t get past Barry supporters who were rending their clothes in horror and despair when Bush did, well, anything, but if Barry does it there is nary a peep heard. Nothing. Even when Barry continues or expands Bush-era protocols for dealing with terrorists, nobody says a damn thing.
Which just confirms what I assumed all along, about progressives and the nature of their inherent tool-ness. I would love to see Congress assert something, other than its prerogative to acquiesce to whatever Barry wants.
If the Republicans don’t take the Senate, do you really think Harry Reid gives a fig about this? If the Republicans do take the Senate do you really think they possess the moral courage to do something about it and will occupy themselves with something besides rewarding big campaign contributors, jostling for position and office space, tee times, junkets, and restaurant reservations after the elections?
I teach my students that a republic can only function when the majority of citizens comply voluntarily with the law. I don’t even have a word to describe a government where politicians feel free to trod on the Constitution whenever it fits their fancy, but it’s not the republic our Founders intended. Mark Levin describes the current situation as a post-constitutional America. I would like to say he’s wrong, but I can’t make the case when Congress refuses to defend its constitutional prerogatives.
Prof. Yoo – don’t quit your day job, you’ll starve making predictions. The GOP won’t do a damn thing.