Category Archives: Federalism

Question The Judiciary Only When Establishment Says So

Donald Trump, Federalism, Justice, Law, The Courts

Didn’t liberals, GOPers included, caution just the other day that our federal system (the holy trinity of colluding branches) rests on the little people not questioning the judiciary out loud, or was that a Trump-specific injunction? A. J. Delgado wants to know:

UPDATED: Obama Will Likely Use The Equivalent Of An Executive Order To Fill SCOTUS Vacancy

Barack Obama, Federalism, Justice, Law, The Courts

It’s called a recess appointment, and we know enough about President Barack Obama to know he’ll use it to fill the Supreme Court vacancy (left by Antonin Scalia’s death), in the teeth of Republican opposition.

Over to professor Jonathan Turley:

… Faced with a refusal of the Republican senators to move forward with a nominee for the court in the last year of the Obama Administration, President Obama could use the nuclear option: a recess appointment to the Supreme Court.

Under Article II of the U.S. Constitution a president is allowed to temporarily fill vacancies that “may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” I have long been a critic of recess appointments to the judiciary. While far less common than appointments to the Executive Branch, such appointments have occurred historically (including 12 to the Supreme Court).Yet judicial recess appointments undermine the integrity of the courts by using the equivalent of a judicial temp for a position that was meant to be held by a jurist with lifetime tenure.

The framers wanted a president and the Senate to come to an accord on such appointments, including the need to compromise to achieve such goals. Obama, however, made it clear years ago that he was willing to go it alone when Congress failed to give him legislation or confirmations that he demanded. His unilateral actions have already produced a constitutional crisis over the fundamental guarantees of the separation of powers. This includes a unanimous 2014 decision of the Supreme Court that Obama violated the recess appointments clause in his circumvention of the Senate. …

More Turley.

Meanwhile, Republicans prepare to cave:

BACKGROUND:

OBAMA’S BACKGROUND:

Jeff Deist:

More debunking of the “Obama is brilliant” narrative. He was never a constitutional scholar, a con law professor, or even a top law student.
And his vaunted aloofness is not due to being intelligent and bored- it’s due to being out of his league.
He is, and was, an empty suit. A complete cipher in 2008, thanks to a compliant media in the tank for him.
Note also Obama’s pseudo-intellectual interest in phony theories like Alinsky’s “Power Analysis.”

“Chicago Law Prof on Obama: The Professors Hated Him because he was Lazy, Unqualified & Never Attended any of the Faculty Meetings.”

UPDATE (2/24):

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Iowa Caucuses Would Be Remarkable Athenian Democracy, If ONLY

Democracy, Elections, Federalism, Founding Fathers

James Madison was not a democrat. He denounced popular rule as “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Democracy, he observed, must be confined to a “small spot” (like Athens). That’s why what’s underway in Iowa is so remarkable for its local impetus, “a gathering of neighbors,” really. Where an Iowa-like process loses any semblance of legitimate self-government is once campaigns expand and local voices become fainter and fainter. The Iowa Caucuses would be remarkable Athenian Democracy, but for the fact that by the time candidates get to Washington, they forget about Iowans (or the people of any other state). When it leaves the locality, Democracy, like water ripples, never comes back.

Right now, this “gathering of neighbors” is impressive:

In Iowa, groups of voters will meet in 1,681 precincts throughout the state beginning at 7 p.m. local time Monday. “It’s basically a gathering of neighbors, so it’s the folks on your street or in your neighborhood or at your church who vote at the same place where you vote, coming together to discuss politics,” said David Redlawsk, a political science professor at Rutgers University currently serving as a fellow at Iowa’s Drake University. The caucuses will take place at schools, fire stations, city halls and sometimes churches — any easily accessible public location. … There’s a similar theme voters in both states should remember: Love thy neighbor. It just might help your candidate become the next president. … “The caucuses are really about community and neighborhood gatherings and talking politics. But in the end, the campaign in New Hampshire is very similar to the campaign in Iowa — it’s very personal, it’s very oriented around town halls and one-on-ones,” Redlawsk said.

Schooling Sanders On ‘Inequality Of Condition’ As Essential To Progress & Liberty

Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Liberty, Socialism, Taxation

In his spectacular “Disquisition on Government,” John C. Calhoun, one of America’s greatest political thinkers, outlines why it is so dangerous to depict liberty as meaningless without equality, when the opposite is the truth. From A Disquisition on Government:

… There is another error, not less great and dangerous, usually associated with the one which has just been considered. I refer to the opinion, that liberty and equality are so intimately united, that liberty cannot be perfect without perfect equality.

That they are united to a certain extent — and that equality of citizens, in the eyes of the law, is essential to liberty in a popular government, is conceded. But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at the same time, indispensable to progress. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the main spring to progress is, the desire of individuals to better their condition; and that the strongest impulse which can be given to it is, to leave individuals free to exert themselves in the manner they may deem best for that purpose, as far at least as it can be done consistently with the ends for which government is ordained — and to secure to all the fruits of their exertions.

Now, as individuals differ greatly from each other, in intelligence, sagacity, energy, perseverance, skill, habit of industry and economy, physical power, position and opportunity — the necessary effect of leaving all free to exert themselves to better their condition, must be a corresponding inequality between those who may possess these qualities and advantages in a high degree, and those who may be deficient in them. The only means by which this result can be prevented are, either to impose such restrictions on the exertions of those who may possess them in a high degree, as will place them on a level with those who do not; or to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions.

But to impose such restrictions on them would be destructive of liberty — while, to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions, could be to destroy the desire of bettering their condition. It is, indeed, his inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest the march of progress.

These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal — than which nothing can be more unfounded and false. It rests upon the assumption of a fact, which is contrary to universal observation, in whatever light it may be regarded. It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound season, ever could have been so extensively entertained, unless we regard it as being confounded with another, which has some semblance of truth — but which, when properly understood, is not less false and dangerous. …

MORE Disquisition on Government.