The latter is where the law-enforcers’ personal scruples lead them to want to follow the law as written, so they regretfully leave you alone, and the former is where the law-enforcers’ personal ‘scruples’ lead them to want to disregard the law as written, so they gleefully leave you alone.
Either way, you remain untouched by the law.
Yep!
It’s exactly like jury nullification, except by people who are paid to know better, and (in this case) the people doing it are doing it to be accessories to crime.
FWIW, that’s actually, legitimately the case in France since the Chirac years. It was beautiful, too : Chirac was involved in any number of crooked schemes and the judges were circling around him so the (at the time) right-wing parliament hurriedly passed a law stating that the President could not be indicted while in office, for any reason.
I wouldn’t recommend it, for Reasons.
The laws we need are all there on the books. Now we just need to hire people who will enforce them.
Lots of legal commentary has written that the case might no longer be good law, since the underlying assumption, was proved wrong pretty quickly.
Which assumption? I suspect you refer to the assumption that that lawsuit in particular - “as well as the potential additional litigation that an affirmance of the Court of Appeals judgment might spawn - may impose an unacceptable burden on the President’s time and energy, and thereby impair the effective performance of his office.”
I disagree; if Mr. Clinton hadn’t lied in court, it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal. I don’t think it should have been a big deal anyways - civil perjury isn’t really a jailworthy offense, but oh well.
~Max
It is not merely that Trump feels he is above the law; the entire administration is above the law. According to the law the heads of certain congressional committees have the statutory right to see anyone’s tax return. Trump orders the IRS not to release his and they obey him. They should be subject to indictment from Justice for violating the law. But the DOJ is run by the AG and will not enforce the law. Contempt of congress? Who is to enforce it? The DOJ. The only possible solution is to impeach the AG. So the entire administration is engaged in being massively above the law. And Moscow Mitch chortles all the time.
I’m starting to think the Department of Justice needs to report to the Judiciary branch. It has worked out reasonably well under the Executive branch up to now, but William Barr has completely destroyed the integrity of the Attorney General’s office. I think the only way to ensure that an evil corrupt president will not be above the law is to remove the AG from under his control or influence. While we’re at it, make an amendment that specifically says that sitting presidents can be indicted.
Is there? I’m willing to accept data on this.
If a state is 51% party A, you can just barely draw a line such that both Senate seats go to part A. But if the state is 49% party A, it’s not possible. No matter how you draw the line, at least 1 seat will go to party A.
The primary problem seems to be that individual States can be utter failures economically and education wise and everything else. And then all the people move out of those states in favor of states that offer better things.
Yet, this system of giving each State 2 votes - and making the Senate more important in the legislature than the House in most critical respects - means that less successful states get more political power relative to their population?!
Taken to the extreme - states could make themselves so difficult to live in that they get abandoned. They could have negative taxes on wealthy people. Publicly funded police and schools could be illegal. Same with utilities and roads. Only millionaires and billionaires who fly in by private airplanes and have private armies to protect their property could live in them.
And then both Senate votes AND 2 house seats go to each of these wastelands.
I’m failing to see how one party controlling one house of Congress and the other party controlling the other isn’t ALWAYS “Party X is holding up Congress”. In any event, that’s more of a feature than a bug; the system is designed to put as many impediments in the way of rashly considered popular initiatives as possible, and IMO, rightly so.
There’s a whole lot of stupid going on in the populace at large, and just because they want something and vote for it RIGHT NOW, doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea, and the Senate and other institutional buffers and stumbling blocks are intended to mitigate that. Without them, how many more Prohibition-level idiocies would the American people have perpetrated on themselves?
And I think you misunderstand gerrymandering w.r.t. the Senate. The boundaries of states don’t change, and they’re directly elected by the people. By definition, gerrymandering can’t be going on. Whatever it is you think is going on, it’s not gerrymandering, as that’s the redrawing of district boundaries at every census for political gain. Since state boundaries don’t change, it’s not gerrymandering.
And AGAIN, the point of the Senate isn’t to be representative of the people. It represents the States as equal entities in the Federal system, which is inherently not proportional. The House is done proportionately, but the Senate is intended not to be, and it never has been. In fact, it’s a compromise done 230 some-odd years ago specifically to balance large vs. small states.
The executive branch enforces the laws, as per the constitution. The Department of Justice enforces the laws, and is part of this branch. How will the executive branch enforce the laws, then? A new department? What’s to prevent the head of this new department from doing what Barr is doing?
No, the solution is to impeach Barr.
And of course, find him guilty in his Senate trial. I am aware that this is extremely unlikely. But even if what you suggest could be done, it is not a long term solution. I am however all for getting rid of this DoJ guideline that says you can’t indict a sitting president. That’s bullshit.
wasn’t Ford elected with Nixon?
No Spiro Agnew was. And resigned for tax evasion, Ford was appointed VP.
It’s my understanding that McConnell isn’t allowing things to be voted on, based on partisan bullshit. That’s the republicans (specifically, a republican) literally preventing Congress from functioning as designed. That’s a level beyond “one house is voting down the other”.
Ford was appointed by Nixon when Vice President Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973. Ford, known for his criticism of President Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War, had been House Minority Leader immediately preceding his nomination as Vice President. He represented Michigan’s 5th district and aspired to become Speaker of the House. The Senate confirmed his nomination for the Vice Presidency 92-3 on November 7, 1973. The House confirmed his nomination 387-35 on December 6, 1973 and Vice President Ford took the oath of office an hour later.
The Watergate scandal had been in full force for some time already. The break-in took place in '72 and the infamous “Saturday night massacre” happened on October 20, 1973 - after Agnew resigned and before Ford was confirmed.
President Nixon himself resigned on August 9, 1974. President Ford issued a presidential pardon on September 8, 1974. His approval ratings instantly dropped twenty percent. Of all the conspiracy theories that float around out there, the supposed “corrupt bargain” between Nixon and Ford isn’t terribly far-fetched.
~Max
The main problem with this is that the DOJ is intended to be the government’s (prosecutorial) legal team and if they were in the judiciary, it would be the judiciary making a case to itself.
The problems in the US are
-The “unitary executive theory” trend where legitimate federal law enforcement activities outside of the executive branch are marginalized.
-Having presidents that require a high bar from congress to be removed, and are only supposed to be removed by something that at least is supposed to look like a criminal trial. Parliamentary systems where the legislature can collapse the government with a simple majority vote IMO work better especially in situations like this.
EDIT: One thing that could potentially work more with minimal overhaul to our current system would be to make the AG an elected position separate from the President. There might be unintended consequences however.
I’m not sure what you mean by " law enforcement activities outside of the executive branch are marginalized" ( I’m not actually sure there are any law enforcement activities outside of the executive branch to begin with) , but in any event , what “unitary executive” means is that executive power is vested in a single office (president, governor etc ). Whether it’s strongly or weakly unitary, it’s the opposite of a plural executive system, where other executives are independently elected - such as states where the AG, controller, Secretary of State , etc are elected rather than appointed by the governor. The thing is, though, you could still end up with a president who’s essentially above the law- because even though a president couldn’t fire an independently elected AG , he or she would still act in a way that wouldn’t harm the chances of re-election.
I think str8cashhomie was referring to either state<->federal law enforcement cooperation or federal contractors behind the scenes.
~Max