No, they’d have to vote each other out with 2/3 majority. That issue came up after Rep. Gifford’s shooting. What if she couldn’t perform her duties and refused to resign. The consensus was 2/3 would have to vote her out.
But what if a group of Reps (more than 1/2 present) refused to allow an ajournment basically forcing a conclave. That would be interesting.
It wouldn’t. There is no constitutional provision for it.
Theoretically, they could be charged under some plausible violation and ordered home, while substitutes take their places. That would be about it as far as I can think.
In any case, the House is performing its constitutional duty. They have passed a budget; the Senate is refusing to accept it and is demanding that its version be accepted. The two bodies are having an argument over what gets into the budget, and both are refusing to budge(t).
Ironically, the Senate version in practice might heavily favor Republicans in future issues, whereas the house version was a massive gift to Democrats. Neither side seems very keen on compromise at this point. I should also point out that the Senate got into the ugly habit of refusing to pass any kind of rational budget (relying on continuing resolutions for years), which is probably why the Republican-controlled House is responding by showdowns over the continually-ascending debt. The debt is not killing us now, but sooner or later we’ll have to figure out how to pay for it and it’s starting to look like a pretty deep hole.
In short, there’s no easy answers. Republicans are looking at that hole and saying, “you’re completely insane!” Democrats want to spend now since they presumably believe it necessary, in the belief or assumption that the economy will “get back to normal” and we don’t have as many problems. We have here is a fundamental difference of belief about what’s going to happen in the future.
As far as it goes, it’s probably a very good idea that we do have separate votes for debt limits, if only to make legislators face up to the debts they pile on during the budget discussions. It’s awfully easy to handwave that, ignoring that debt now means taxes in the future.
This is the beginning and the end of the discussion. Anything else, as Terr said, unconstitutional and despotic. House Republicans are being incredibly stupid and irresponsible right now, but that won’t last forever and this would be worse.
I agree even though I totally disagree with you. The way to make legislators face the debt they create is to authorize the debt when they do the budget and not after. They need to take ownership that if in their budget spending is bigger than revenue that they are in fact creating debt and not this farcical “Oh we’re committed to spending the money so NOW let’s realize we’re going further in debt.”
Except there ARE no substitutions in the House. Those men and women are holding the bag until they resign, are expelled, die or lose an election. Even if they DO vacate their seat for whatever reason, there still has to be a special election (generally, but not always, within 90 days) to fill the seat.
As for the ‘Obama orders the army to arrest members and then the National Guard holds down the state capitals’ routine? Why the hell are we even debating this? Two things would happen pretty easily, maybe three.
The Joint Chiefs would refuse the order as unconstitutional. This would be one of the ‘don’t refuse an order unless you’re damn sure you’re right’ moments.
The governors of the several states would not release the National Guard - which they control - to promote peacekeeping activity inside their capitals.
Biden starts talking to the cabinet about removing Obama from office…as he would be within his rights to do…possibly even required to do so by his oath.
You’re wrong there. The only substantive differences between the House-passed continuing resolution and the Senate-passed version is that the Senate version does not defund Obamacare and it has the stopgap budget expire in mid-November, instead of mid-December as the House proposed.
I can’t even guess what you’re thinking here. I can only conclude that you’re misinformed.
Wrong. You’re confusing two issues: one, that the Senate went three years without passing a budget, and two, what a continuing resolution is.
The Senate not passing a budget for a few years until this spring has nothing to do with actual spending levels. The “budget” in this sense is a non-binding blueprint for spending and revenue that doesn’t actually fund any government agencies at all.
Also, it is true that there have been a greater number of continuing resolutions lately, but you’re wrong to insinuate that those were originated in the Senate due to failure to pass a budget for those few years. ALL the continuing resolutions passed in recent years were first proposed by the House of Representatives.
No, it’s a terrible idea, because you’re directly saying that it is a good idea to hold the entire US economy as a hostage to budget negotiations.
The constitution protects Congresscritters from arrest or detainment that prevents them from attending sessions except in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace. I think you’d have a hard time coming up with a plausible way “not passing a budget” qualifies as any of those.
[QUOTE=Habeed]
Here’s roughly how the coup might go down.
The President would order some branch of the federal government to arrest all members of Congress and to transport them to their home of record in their constituent states. They would be held under house arrest for a period of 6 months. The National Guard would be deployed to each state capital, and would quell riots. The governor would be politely asked by armed soldiers to show up in the capital, and would be asked to choose replacement Congressman within 5 days. If the governor were to fail in his duty, he too would be sent to his house and kept there, and the task would fall to the lieutenant governor.
Once the replacement is concluded, the new Congress would have a chance to go to work.
[/QUOTE]
The trouble being twofold.
[list=A][li]Nobody in the military or police would obey a President who tried this. [*]Any attempt to do so, even if it failed at the outset, would create consensus in Congress to the point of impeaching him 435-0 and removing him from office 100-0.[/list]I don’t have a very high opinion either of Obama or of Biden, but I do not believe them capable of attempting anything like this. [/li]
If they do, consider who is next in line to the Presidency after the VP. Don’t you think that might affect these little goings-on?
Regards,
Shodan
I think this thread started off with some fundamentally flawed understandings of basic facts (like the fact that the House has actually passed several CR’s). That being what it is, I have an idea that hasn’t come up yet:
The States (presumably at Obama’s urging) could propose a Constitutional Convention and then ratify one or more amendments which lead to the resolution of the current crisis.
Some ideas, just off the top of my head:
[ul]
[li]line-item veto[/li][li]Representative recall[/li][li]Obama as supreme dictator for life[/li][/ul]
I don’t think there’s any way Congress could stop it by themselves.
Of course, I doubt there’s enough popular support for any ideas that might actually solve this either, so, we’d be at another stalemate, just this one between representatives of a Constitutional Convention, or perhaps the States.
More to the point, almost no citizen of the United States would consider that new Congress legitimate.
Additionally, if by some miracle this was actually pulled off, you’ve set an incredibly dangerous precedent. Will this become an accepted part of doing things whenever Congress is divided? What about when the next Republican President tries to do the same thing against a Dem Senate blocking the Republican House’s budget, which aims to defund healthcare again?
Just as an aside, the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 would not have allowed the President to sign the House CR and then eliminate the section that defunded Obamacare. That act, before it was struck down by the Supreme Court, only allowed the President to cancel spending for certain types of things. It did not allow the President to cancel a prohibition on funding things.
Tinpot dictatorship!:mad: Just about every democracy in the world has mechanisms to either replace the executive branch, or hold new elections to replace the legislative branch (or either, or both) if the two are deadlocked, and it happens quite frequently. It makes things more democratic, not less, and less dictatorial, not more. The United States may be unique in having such an over-rigid constitution as to make this legally impossible (as I assume it is). Those guys back in the 18th century who drew up the US Constitution just never anticipated such a situation. They thought that the country would continue to be run by reasonable men like themselves. They were wrong.
Yes, and the fact that they have mechanisms to do it makes all the difference. That’s worlds away from making it up on the fly. And note that the OP went on to suggest this scenario:
I’m having trouble understanding the OP.
On the one hand, it’s almost as if he wants to live in a parliamentary system, which would have exactly the remedy he seeks: if a budget can’t pass, Pariament is dissolved and the matter goes to the polls.
On the other hand, he seems to want to give the President the power to order the arrest and detention without trial of 435 citizens of the United States, whose only “crime” is that they haven’t voted the way the President wants them to (and, he even seems to want the President to order the arrest of those Congress-critters who have in fact voted the way the President wants).
Option 1 is not possible in the US system, but it certainly is the case that some democratic, constitutional countries operate on that system.
Option 2 is outright tyranny, and I can’t for the life of me see why the OP thinks it might be a good idea.
Arrest them under what charges?
Not doing what the President wants them to do.
As I said, outright tyranny, but that’s my understanding of what the OP is proposing.
Well, no. That’s wrong.
If the President is unreasonably holding up legislation, the Constitution allows for Congress to override vetoes. Impeachment is not a necessity and is not called for in this circumstance. There is a Constitutional provision to handle this very scenario.
I am not sure you have a complete grasp of some of the basics of how the Constitution calls for the federal government to work.
How do Biden and the Cabinet get the power to remove the President? I can easily see how that sort of misconduct is a “high crime or misdemeanour” warranting impeachment and removal, but how is the President “… unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”, which is what triggers the Veep’s powers under Amendment XXV, s. 4? It’s clearly a misuse of the powers of the office, but how can it be twisted into being an inability?