 |
SwiftVets.com
Service to Country
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
zinfella
Rear Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 708
Location: Mesa, Az
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:49 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
I was unaware of this and it is disconcerting.
| Quote: | Senate Democrats are hoping to finesse the problem with the so-called "Saxbe fix," whereby the salary raise for Secretary of State would return to its previous level. Democrats point out this was used by Richard Nixon to make Ohio Senator William Saxbe Attorney General, and again for Lloyd Bentsen to become Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration.
The Founders wrote the Emoluments Clause to prevent Members from enriching themselves by setting up plum assignments and then maneuvering into the jobs. If Congress is able to ignore language expressly written to curtail its power, the clause is effectively a dead letter. |
"The clause"? How 'bout "The Constitution"?
It appears that all three branches of government have twice conspired in a willfull, arrogant failure to uphold and ignore both the strictures and spirit of an inconvenient Constitutional mandate via legislative slight-of-hand. ALL should have been smacked down hard by an outraged citizenry and I'm wondering now if the "Saxbe Fix" had ever even been judicially challenged by anyone.
While this legislative chicanery might serve to make a rather trivial inconvenience "go away" (perhaps retiring the "Emolument Clause" DOES warrant a Constitutional Amendment process), the precedent that it sets is no small matter and is likely to re-surface in an attempt to ignore other Constitutional mandates, the "Natural Born Citizen" clause being a likely candidate. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
zinfella
Rear Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 708
Location: Mesa, Az
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Me#1You#10 wrote: | I was unaware of this and it is disconcerting.
| Quote: | Senate Democrats are hoping to finesse the problem with the so-called "Saxbe fix," whereby the salary raise for Secretary of State would return to its previous level. Democrats point out this was used by Richard Nixon to make Ohio Senator William Saxbe Attorney General, and again for Lloyd Bentsen to become Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration.
The Founders wrote the Emoluments Clause to prevent Members from enriching themselves by setting up plum assignments and then maneuvering into the jobs. If Congress is able to ignore language expressly written to curtail its power, the clause is effectively a dead letter. |
"The clause"? How 'bout "The Constitution"?
It appears that all three branches of government have twice conspired in a willfull, arrogant failure to uphold and ignore both the strictures and spirit of an inconvenient Constitutional mandate via legislative slight-of-hand. ALL should have been smacked down hard by an outraged citizenry and I'm wondering now if the "Saxbe Fix" had ever even been judicially challenged by anyone.
While this legislative chicanery might serve to make a rather trivial inconvenience "go away" (perhaps retiring the "Emolument Clause" DOES warrant a Constitutional Amendment process), the precedent that it sets is no small matter and is likely to re-surface in an attempt to ignore other Constitutional mandates, the "Natural Born Citizen" clause being a most likely candidate. |
My own thoughts are that the current SCOTUS would not accept this chicanery. Of course someone has to bring it to them, and then put up with same type of rhetoric from the left that those who merely want to verify Obama's BC put up with. It seems to me that few people nowadays pay any attention to the end runs around the Constitution, something that I think they will regret.
_________________
No whiners! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GoophyDog
PO1
Joined: 10 Jun 2004
Posts: 480
Location: Washington - The Evergreen State
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Why is no one mentioning that a "professor of constitutional law" is the one who picked her in the first place?
Um, hello - wasn't that Obama's street creds?
_________________
Why ask? Because it needs asking. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
baldeagle
PO2
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Posts: 362
Location: Grand Saline, Texas
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 1:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
Folks, it is my belief that it has been decades since anyone in Washington, from either of the 3 branches of government allowed that "pesky" Constitution to interfere with their agendas.
From McCain/Fiengold and the ACLU tromping all over the 1st amendm't to the thousands of infringments on the 2nd, the many abuses of the 4th by the DEA and ATF, and on and on and on it goes.
No one even bothers to ask if it is "constitutional" any more when considering the next piece of pandering legislation.
The Constitution only comes into play when it is used to settle a dispute between two opposing constituences. So long as no on of influence objects it is full speed ahead and screw the constitution.
| Quote: | "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." --James Madison
"We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money." —Davy Crockett |
_________________
"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
