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House GOP Plays Hardball on Mattis Appointment
Breaking from Politico:
House Republicans released a short-term spending bill Tuesday containing language designed to speed confirmation of retired Gen. James Mattis to be Donald Trump’s defense secretary. The move will force Senate Democrats to decide whether to oppose the budget legislation over the matter — and risk a government shutdown — ahead of a Friday deadline.
The language would still require Mattis to receive 60 votes for a waiver needed to join Trump’s Cabinet because of his recent military service. But it would expedite the Senate process in advance of Trump’s swearing-in.
Risking a government shutdown to gain a conservative victory? Hopefully the GOP will get used to this having-a-backbone thing.
Published in General
I’m simply in shock.
This is not a constitutional issue. The president appoints people with “the advice and consent” of the Senate. If they want to pass a law saying that they will only countenance North Carolinians named “Gomer,” they can do so. If they want to pass such a law and waive it, they can do that too.
Could a Democrat Congress with a Democrat President pass a law that says “All future cabinet appointments must be Democrats” and thus bind all future Republican Presidents?
Right up until the time it gets repealed. Assuming the Republicans let it. Assuming the phrase “be a Democrat” is found to mean anything. (With an open primarin Illinois, all you need do to be a Democrat is say “I’m a Democrat.”)
Of course not. But the rule of law is dead. Power is what works now apparently. If the rule of law were still in force, we wouldn’t have homosexual marriage. We wouldn’t have women in the infantry. We wouldn’t have Obamacare.
I think it’s time to take the blinders off. Law is only as good as the people who are compelled to follow it. We need to change the thinking so that the people follow laws that favor freedom from an ever more powerful federal government.
If Hillary had won this election, she would have expanded federal power to enrich her and her followers to a degree never seen. We have lived through an increasingly lawless federal government that will NOT relinquish its power. The only way is for someone else to take it away from them. The only way to do that without bloodshed, in my opinion, is if the states wrest their power back by enforcing the tenth amendment.
But Congress can restrict the constitutional powers of the President in your opinion?
How do you expect to accomplish that if you abandon the very concept of rule of law?
I haven’t abandoned anything. I think it no longer exists. Obama has shown that he will do whatever he wants whenever he wants. Hillary would have been even worse. Trump is running around interfering with government contracts with civilian vendors and strong arming private businesses.
I have more hope than if Hillary were elected. I have only a little hope. I hope that we can revive our sense of freedom and of the rule of law, but that won’t happen without some dramatic change.
This just isn’t true. Take for example the Supreme Court decision about recess appointments.
All I want for christmas: a thousand rounds of 5.56 green tip.
In one sense, they are right, Jamie. I remember some guy who had lived in the former soviet union speaking about life there. He said there were so many laws that no one followed them. Nobody. Maybe that’s where we are? So many laws, that you can choose which ones you follow? Maybe the Republic is dead? Pass the whiskey.
There are people who disagree with Marbury, you know. Learned types even. I suppose they were Trumpsters even before Trump was born. In fact, isn’t the “Madison” in question one of the authors of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, and an advocate of a less powerful Government?
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/03/08/the-myth-of-marbury-v-madison/
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2005/03/16/its_time_to_end_judicial_review
I am pretty sure Ben is not a super big Trump guy, but maybe he is.
So saying that I am abandoning the Rule of Law, is, just a bit melodramatic. You agree the law is wrong. It does not take a law to undo it, it does not take a ruling to do it.
Now, if the Supreme Court had already ruled on the topic, I would agree the law would need to be changed.
You need to read the Shapiro piece again – he’s arguing that judicial review should end because it is no longer tied to the constitution. That judges are substituting their own personal opinion for constitutional opinion.
Your argument seems to be that we should extend that power to all branches of government – which would create nothing but chaos.
Question: If I as a private citizen agree a law is unconstitutional do I have the right to simply ignore it?
Agreed, forcing the Democrats to “be the bad guys” is a lot different. In fact, it’s further recognition of the unpopularity of government shut downs.
Sure!
If you’re prepared to go to jail.
That’s the funny thing about liberals and civil disobedience. They forget the part where guys like Ghandi and JFK (or the Apostle Paul) sat in jail for their beliefs.
My point, Ryan, was that the rule of law doesn’t allow anyone, even Presidents, to simply ignore the law based on their own opinions.
I’m fine with it myself, but I can understand why others might not be.
I’m not read up on any of this. Let me rephrase to see if I’ve got it right: there’s a law that requires a time lapse before a general can become SOD, and so congress is creating a new law that allows for a waiver, and using the budget process to push it through?
Seems this is something we’d complain about if the shoe was on the other foot. It also seems like Republicans may be taking a page out of Obama’s “elections have consequences” playbook. On the one hand, maybe they’ve decided that the past 8 years are a lesson learned. On the other hand, I’d hope they can find ways to halt the pendulum from swinging back and forth at ever increasingly extreme heights.
Personally, I’d say that Republicans should use the democrats’ own tricks to undo much of what they’ve done. I honestly don’t know if this sort of bill is standard course – in which case, fine – or if they should simply write a separate bill to amend the law.
I’m not sure where “unconstitutional” comes into play, but I haven’t read all of the comments… So I’ll have to brush up on that.
True. Are we saying that this administration is simply ignoring the law by appointing Mattis? We complained about that a lot with Obama – so, if the alternative is to pass an additional law to allow for an exception, that seems way better. Part of undoing Obama is to not replicate his behavior. Also, keeping in mind that virtually everything Obama has done won’t be lasting because we can simply undo much of it. Using legislature to pass new laws, rather than utilizing the executive to ignore existing laws, is a much, much better option. And yes, it allows us to maintain consistency. Obama ignored laws, and we rightly complained. We would be foolish to do the same, especially if there is a relatively easy – legal – alternative.
Also; @bryangstephens, keep in mind that we just spent 8 years complaining about executive overreach, and the left used a whole lot of arguments to justify why Obama was in the right, and that we should just get over it because we won and he lost.
Yes, we certainly could simply take up that mantra and say that now we’ve won and it is they who have lost. But it is important to remember that Obama’s legacy will not be lasting, and that is primarily because of the way he went about accomplishing things while flipping the bird to 1/2 the country. We can undo it because he used so much executive overreach. We may not be able to “accomplish” as much as him by doing it legally, but if we enact laws through legislature (which we can do for the next 2 years, though it might require some amount of compromise), we can actually make lasting changes that can’t simply be signed away by another president with a pen.
If our side does something and we jump straight to the defense, simply because it’s our side, then we’ve got problems. Think about whether those same arguments would apply to a defense of things that Obama did in office; if so, we should probably take a different approach.
In terms of who gets appointed? Sure. See “Tower, John.”
Wasn’t John Tower rejected along advice and consent lines? What I mean is: can Congress bind future Presidents and Congresses in this way? Shouldn’t all appointments be up to the discretion of the President appointing them and Senate consent at the time they are appointed?
No, the question is, if Trump nominates (despite this law which precludes it, and without a waiver) and Senate Confirms, would anyone have standing to sue to prevent Mattis taking office?
Not in advance. When Mattis implements a decision that causes someone harm or that will cause someone harm, they have standing to sue to clarify that he was never properly appointed and thus lacks the power to do anything as a Sec. Def.
I don’t know if he would win or not, but it would be a lot of work even if he did win and if he didn’t it’d be chaos (lots of vacated decisions, each of which leads to expense and other problems) and even more work. I’m not sure I see the argument in favor of this. Why shouldn’t we jump through the relatively easy hoops? If the Dems block this they’ll be on the wrong side of a pretty popular issue and their opposition on that would be helpful in tainting their opposition in future confrontations. They almost certainly can’t block it for all that long.
That makes sense. So they can’t do it directly, but by indirection.
Mostly. Once before a waiver was passed through Congress 2 years after the law was enacted. My main point is that law isn’t waiverable. If it’s a good law, adhere to it. If it’s bad policy and bad law then change it, which could be done with a single sentence in any bill striking this one sentence in 10USC§113(a). Picking and choosing when to follow the law and when to not follow the law is a terrible way to run a country.
They can only block the waiver or changing of the law because it is legislation and requires 60 vote cloture. Because Reid went nuclear on confirmations they cannot block that.
Yes, but that’s just it. They can pass laws: it’s one of the perks of being in Congress — that and “fact-finding” junkets and free postage. They can also waive those same laws for no more reason than they passed them. One of the reasons they voted down John Tower was because he drank too much. One of the people who voted against him was Teddy “I’ll have another” Kennedy. Contemplate the level of non-self awareness that intellectual pirouette required.
Since that is all you picked at, I will take that as agreement with my other items.