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“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”
I brought this up to my Congressman last week and he changed the subject. David McKinley (R) WV held a Q&A session last week. I will give him credit for having it as I believe he is the first Congressman in a very long time to come here to hear out the people but I asked him how he was going to vote on the illegal alien issue.
He said that enforcing the borders had to come first (which I do not believe him on) and then he said that it was a complicated issue. That he knew of a valedictorian that was here illegally and all she wanted to do was to be able to legally get a job. I told him that all I wanted to do was pay lower taxes and what laws exactly was it that I could ignore to get what I want?
Presidents of all parties, from Adams and Jefferson, to Reagan have always ignored laws and the issue has been debated for over 200 years.
President Adams refused to spend the money allocated by Congress to bring the army up to full strength, even though we were on the verge of war.
President Jefferson refused to spend the money allocated by Congress to purchase gunboats.
When Jefferson became president, before the Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed, he pardoned those in prison over them and instructed that Federal prosecutions over them stop.
President Buchanan even gave it a name: Presidential Disregard.
President Wilson defied Congress when it came to his authority to appoint postmasters and he disregarded and refused to implement parts of the Jones Merchant Marine Act of 1920.
Presidents Harding and Coolidge did not enforce provisions of the Volstead Act. Some of Harding's US Attorneys obstructed enforcement of the law according to Willebrant; they were not removed.
July 13, 1955 President Eisenhower in a signing statement: ""will be regarded as invalid by the executive branch of the Government in the administration of H.R. 6042, unless otherwise determined by a court of competent jurisdiction." In other words, he was going to ingore a provision of the Department of Defense Appropriation Act until ordered to by the Courts.
President Reagan refused to implement provisions of the Competition in Contracting Act. He later issued an executive order that the president could ignore unconstitutional laws before they were determined to be so.
President Bush disregarded provisions of the National andCommunity Service Act of 1990 and was taken to court to enforce some environmental laws his administration would not enforce.
Precedent is not a justification or excuse. It is irrelevant.
It is not irrelevant. It shows once again, that folks object to what Obama does because it is Obama, they have no other reason other than their distain for him.
Obamacare is his law. It's the centerpiece of his administration. He can't expect to ignore the legal requirements and then expect others to abide by them. That is the point here.
A president is not above the law. He is not exempt. If he doesn't have to abide by laws, neither do I.
If the president were ignoring provisions rather than delaying them in accordance with statute, folks would have taken the issue to court - the same way other parts of the law have ended up in court.
It is not according to any statute. This all is going through the courts.
It is not irrelevant. It shows once again, that folks object to what Obama does because it is Obama, they have no other reason other than their distain for him.
There is case law going back to Myers vs. US supporting the right of presidents in certain cases to ignore certain laws or portions in them.
No, it is irrelevant. Case law IS ALSO IRRELEVANT.
If the president were ignoring provisions rather than delaying them in accordance with statute, folks would have taken the issue to court - the same way other parts of the law have ended up in court.
He is NOT "delaying them in accordance with statute".
He's just flat out re-writing the law for partisan purpose.
This is an incredibly profound statement. It's also very true.
Which leads me to question why liberals are SO unwilling to demand conformance to the rule of law...
Perhaps one might take a stab at answering the question.
Dunno about liberals, or conservatives, but the law is...
USCON Article 2...
"he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, "
Note, it states the Laws, not all Laws, so there is some wiggle room. However he is not given the right to break laws (such as violating the 14th Amendment)
14th Amendment Section 1...
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Now the article refers to the President not enforcing specific statutes in the ACA, that's both a violation of Article 2 (as the law is being executed, but not faithfully) AND the equal protection clause, certain citizens are given a pass on the enforcement of the law, the reasons why they're given a pass is irrelevant they may be perfectly good reasons, but that's irrelevant to the 14th Amendment.
That's very different to not executing a law (as I said there is some wiggle room). He could choose not to execute the ACA at all, and that's entirely fine, it's not de jure violating either Article 2 of the Constitution or the 14th Amendment, but choosing to enforce specific sections of the ACA against specific citizens is clearly a violation of both Article 2 (the executive is not faithfully executing) and the 14th Amendment (there is not equal protection of the laws), unless there is some congressional action that supports the executive's position of selective enforcement, if there is not then it is a violation of both parts of the Constitution.
That being the case, it leads to the question of what do the people want, do they want a government that is not bound by law? Or do they want to enforce that the government is indeed bound by law, silence being implicit consent.
Precedent is not a justification or excuse. It is irrelevant.
Ain't you never heard of precedential power?
A friend of mine is involved in a federal court action where his request to the judge to order the government to "produce" documents that had to have existed, by statutory requirement, at the time of my friend's transactions with the government, was that the judge ordered the government to produce the documents.
The government responded that since the government violated their own statutes by having not created the documents necessary for the transactions with my friend, that they couldn't "produce" them because they do not exist.
My friend ordered the government to CONSTRUCT the documents.
The judge said that he couldn't order the government to construct the documents, because their was no precedent for ordering the government to construct documents that the statutes required them to have constructed earlier. Then was then, now is now.
The judge claims that he has no power to order the government to comply with the statutes now because there is no precedent for a judge to correct a government fraud after the fact.
Many judges and other government officials apparently believe that a statute has no existence until there is precedent to explain the statute.
Maybe Obamacare doesn't really exist until there is precedent for its existence.
Must be a warped version of a - "nothing new under the sun rule".
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