Dear Professor ZZZ,
You wrote: “I’m also curious if others agree with me that Speaker Pelosi
is acting in the highest tradition of Federalist
51 by standing up for her institution against a mountebank who is indeed using
loyal employees of the executive branch as hostages to bend Congress to his
dictatorial will?”
Pre-Jackson there was a view that presidents should only veto bills if
they believed them unconstitutional. Post-Jackson presidents routinely veto
bills on policy grounds. Trump is having a policy dispute with Pelosi about
funding a wall. It is simple.
Pelosi and her majority are entitled to control access to their chamber.
I don’t see anything high or low about such conduct—as a matter of principle,
it is pretty mundane, although historically such restrictions against the
President are quite exceptional.
I don’t see any value calling Trump’s veto threats as “using loyal
employees ... as hostages.” Either side and both sides are fully entitled to
play hard ball to get their spending priorities. This politics has to be
allowed (even as a normative matter) to play itself out—otherwise elections are
meaningless. Our super-majoritarian Constitution—for better and worse—has
multiple veto gates. When an elected arm of the government makes use of a veto
gate—particularly in support of an election pledge—we should characterize such
conduct as ordinary democracy in action and as good politics, consistent with
transparency and accountability norms.
Describing Trump as “bend[ing] Congress to his dictatorial will”—there
you’ve entirely lost me with your casual use of “dictatorial.” What does “dictatorial”
add? And how do you mean it? Has Trump stopped elections—state or federal? Has
he launched unauthorized land wars? Has he ordered his prosecutors to round up
his political opponents? Or, has he detained people based on ethnicity? Has he
disobeyed any court rulings where he was a party? Or, has he ordered the
government to disobey such rulings where the government was a party? Other than
that you don’t care for Trump, his policies, and his rhetoric—what purpose does
it serve to use such hyperbolic language?
In my view, the Copperheads had no good cause to call Lincoln a
dictator. But I think they had better cause (then) to call Lincoln a dictator,
than you have (today) to call Trump a dictator. I don’t say that because Trump,
his policies, and his rhetoric should escape scrutiny, but only because I see
nothing justifying your characterization of Trump or his will as “dictatorial.”
That said: I think you are on much firmer ground using the language of “hostage”
and “dictatorial” in regard to Trump than your and other (fellow) Americans’ doing
so in regard to Brexit. Not because the purported wrongful substantive conduct
at issue is so very different, but because it is (in my opinion) natural to
think the stakes are higher when we speak about our own country. Likewise, we
(in my opinion) tend to believe (and quite rightly I might add) that we are
better informed about our own country than that of distant lands under
different legal systems with different constitutional and political mores. All these factors might have a distinct tendency to lead one to rhetorical excess. By contrast, when Americans (i.e., those of us lacking any specific expertise about the UK and EU) use this sort of hyperbolic language about Brexit, I can only wonder:—What is driving “this chorus of execration”*?
Seth
Seth Barrett Tillman, Trump the
Dictator—On Conlawprof (where else?), New Reform Club (Jan. 24, 2019, 4:37 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2019/01/trump-dictator.html>.
*Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War 118 (1902), <https://tinyurl.com/ydxl6mv4>; see also Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle/illustrated ch. 8 (2017), <https://tinyurl.com/yb4ndx77>; cf. Address to the Annual General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre (Birmingham, Midland Hotel April 20, 1968), <https://tinyurl.com/yaqzg2cf>.
Welcome Instapundit readers!
Welcome Instapundit readers!
6 comments:
Than, not then.
Maybe I just don't know the right places to look, but I thought I'd see more commentary about the text of Article II Section 3: "He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them[...]"
Is it really true that the president has the power to convene either or both house of congress, but cannot address them without their leave?
Has this power ever been used? If so, how?
Why couldn't the Senate invite Trump to speak from that chamber?
"Pre-Jackson there was a view that president’s should only veto bills if they believed them unconstitutional. Post-Jackson presidents routinely veto bills on policy grounds."
president's?
I made corrections accordingly. thank you. seth
I think in person State of the Union addresses are a relatively recent 20th century innovation. I believe the President can fulfill his constitutional duty via a written document delivered to Congress.
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