Zivotofsky v. Kerry and Recognizing Nations

Zivotofsky v. Kerry was a surprise to me, as I had not heard of the years-long conflict between Presidents and Congress with regards to the Foreign Relations Authorization
Act, Fiscal Year 2003. Saying that “[the President] shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers”, does not to me clearly imply that a President can recognize any State she decides she wants to.

Who was the last Pres. to controversially recognize a State? Reading about the Taiwan Relations Act leads me Goldwater v. Carter , which is about a controversial de-recognition.

There was some controversy over President Clinton’s decision to recognize the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1995.

Apparently Congress and the White House were in disagreement on the extent to which they should deal with Rhodesia, during the period of minority rule:

I though the implication of the ruling was a bit more in depth, specifically that the state department was part of the administration, and congress could not tell the state department what to do as they had no authority to override the administration. State department recognizes other countries, otherwise why not let anyone do it? I gather the implication in the ruling was that if congress disliked what the state department was doing, the limit of what they could do was impeach the President or Secretary of State, or else cut off the budget?

I’m pretty sure the President is male.

Judging by another thread, this apparently has something to do with the possibility that Hillary Clinton will recognize Palestine if she’s elected President.

Moderator Action

There has never been a female president, so referring to the president as “she” has only served to drag up the Hillary Clinton issue from your other thread, which serves absolutely no purpose in GQ. If you really want to discuss Hillary Clinton, you are more than free to do so in Great Debates, Elections, or The Pit (depending on the exact nature of your thread).

Without the Hillary reference, your post was otherwise perfectly acceptable for GQ. However, since you were already given instructions in your previous thread to take the Hillary issue elsewhere, I am going to close this. If you drag Hillary into yet another GQ thread after this, you will receive a warning for failure to follow moderator instructions.

Thread closed.