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44 to reverse 43's executive orders

danarhea

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One of Obama's first orders of business when he takes office is going to be shooting down ALL of Bush's executive orders. OK, I won't argue with that, and it will be a good thing reversing those executive orders which amounted to passing legislation, or to come up with arguments about false definitions by Congress when it passed those laws. As for the other executive orders, that is also fair. When Obama leaves office, I am sure that executive orders he passed will also be overturned. That is the political aspect of executive orders, and in our type of government, it is something that everyone, whether on the right or the left, is going to have to live with as a fact of life.

However, let me go back to those executive orders which sought to make law instead of enforcing the law. Yes, I did say it was a good thing that these are being overturned, but what is to stop Obama from doing the same thing? Congress and the courts, that's what. That is why we need a fight at the Supreme Court to make perfectly clear the functions of Congress and the President. Congress passes laws. The president takes an oath to enforce those laws. Any other argument or collecton of weasel words is clearly unconstitutional. I would hope that Obama truly believes this, but he is a politician, and politicians are...... what's the word? Ah yes - Crooked by nature. Oops, that's 3 words, but you get my meaning. You can count on Obama to push the meaning of unitary executive, and he must be stopped.

The GOP is clearly in the minority now, but as a minorty, they can have a huge impact on the lawmaking process by taking Obama to court if he tries the same crap that Bush got away with. OK, OK, I know what some of you are going to say. Bush, Bush, Bush. My answer? So what? Just becuase the Democrats were lily-livered when Bush was in office doesn't mean the Republicans are. In fact, the one thing I AM counting on is the GOP's historic ruthlessness to bring an historic cornerstone of the Constitution back into today's political process, where it clearly belongs. If they do this, they will have 110% support from me. Go for it, Republicans!!

Article is here
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I think the first thing he should do is close down Gitmo and house the prisoners in some nice apartments in San Fransisco. :cool:
 
I think the first thing he should do is close down Gitmo and house the prisoners in some nice apartments in San Fransisco. :cool:
I think you left the part about nuking San Francisco out of your statement

:lol:
 
That is why we need a fight at the Supreme Court to make perfectly clear the functions of Congress and the President. Congress passes laws. The president takes an oath to enforce those laws. Any other argument or collecton of weasel words is clearly unconstitutional.
The constitutionality of executive orders is quite clear -- it depends entirely on the nature of the order.

All things being equal...
If an EO is pursuant to executing existing legislation, it is Constitutional
If an EO is pursuant to the Article II powers of the President, it is Constitutional
If an EO is pursuant to neither... it depends on the order itself.
 
The constitutionality of executive orders is quite clear -- it depends entirely on the nature of the order.

All things being equal...
If an EO is pursuant to executing existing legislation, it is Constitutional
If an EO is pursuant to the Article II powers of the President, it is Constitutional
If an EO is pursuant to neither... it depends on the order itself.

If it is pursuant to redefining existing legislation, it is unconstitutional.
 
If it is pursuant to redefining existing legislation, it is unconstitutional.
That depends on a lot of things. The Executive has lattitude on how he enforces the law, which is often based on how he interprets the law.
 
I don't think I'll ever understand the hatred that Conservatives have for San Francisco. Yeah, it's a pretty liberal minded place and it was the hub of the 60's drug era. So what? Honestly, why is San Francisco so horrible?
 
I don't think I'll ever understand the hatred that Conservatives have for San Francisco. Yeah, it's a pretty liberal minded place and it was the hub of the 60's drug era. So what? Honestly, why is San Francisco so horrible?

The 49ers?
 
I agree with you 100% Dan. There is certainly time and place for executive order. Directing offices and agencies under the control of the Executive, executing law, etc. But it can also be abused and we have seen abuses for a long long time. It's at the point where we need to close loopholes. The EO can't be used to legislate. We have a legislature for that, already taken care of. I hope the Republicans would challenge it, but I'm not holding my breath. The Republicans know that if they wait, they'll be in charge again and they'll want to be able to use the EO as they see fit. So just bide their time and get back in, don't challenge because once you challenge you open up a huge can of worms called checks and balances. Wouldn't want to be held accountable for their abuses of power or lack of enforcements, would they?
 
it will be a good thing reversing those executive orders which amounted to passing legislation,

Examples?

or to come up with arguments about false definitions by Congress when it passed those laws.

Examples?

However, let me go back to those executive orders which sought to make law instead of enforcing the law.

You kinda have to identify them first, don't you, before you simply divine their existence.

That is why we need a fight at the Supreme Court to make perfectly clear the functions of Congress and the President.

Despite the FACT, that the Framers sought and intended the Courts to stay out of political questions?

So, you're demanding that a branch of the government that the Framers were explicitly intending to remove from political questions should be the arbiter of...political questions?

Did you think about this before transforming that tingle running up your leg into a post here?

Congress passes laws. The president takes an oath to enforce those laws.

The President also takes an oath to defend the Constitution.

As I have told you multiple times, this take care function of the Executive requires that the Executive interpret laws and determine if they are constitutional before enforcing them. This is why see Presidents constantly issuing signing statements notifying Congress of their objection to legislative line item veto provisions contained in appropriations bills that Congress inserted despite the Supreme Court having ruled such provisions unconstitutional more than two decades ago.

What don't you get here?

The GOP is clearly in the minority now, but as a minorty, they can have a huge impact on the lawmaking process by taking Obama to court if he tries the same crap that Bush got away with.

Not anymore as anyone paying attention to Congress already knows. The Democratic majority are already making substantial rules changes that are eliminating or severely restricting minority power in Congress.
 
I agree with you 100% Dan. There is certainly time and place for executive order. Directing offices and agencies under the control of the Executive, executing law, etc. But it can also be abused and we have seen abuses for a long long time. It's at the point where we need to close loopholes. The EO can't be used to legislate.

Uh, the authority to issue Executive Orders ain't some legislative loophole. What are you thinking?

We have a legislature for that, already taken care of. I hope the Republicans ould challenge it, but I'm not holding my breath. The Republicans know that if they wait, they'll be in charge again and they'll want to be able to use the EO as they see fit.

Will one of you people carping about EO's being used to legislate cite just a single example of such an EO?
 
Uh, the authority to issue Executive Orders ain't some legislative loophole. What are you thinking?

I'm thinking you have somehow damaged your long term memory. We've done this exact song and dance before.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...use-executive-orders-immediate-impact-10.html

Also, I think your reading comprehension may be bad. I didn't say the authority to issue EO's is a legislative loophole. In fact, I said there is a time and place for the EO, there is a proper function for it. But that it has been abused, and has been used to circumvent the legislative process. I said those loopholes need to be closed. Not the whole of the EO, just constraints so that it can't be as easily abused.

Will one of you people carping about EO's being used to legislate cite just a single example of such an EO?

I think a good example is EO 13233. It's an odd executive order

Executive Order 13233 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1974, Congress passed legislation placing the presidential records of Richard Nixon in federal custody to prevent their destruction. The legislative action was intended to reduce secrecy, while allowing historians to perform their responsibilities. In 1972, decades of official and unofficial Federal Bureau of Investigation records had been destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover, by his longtime secretary. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 expanded such protection of historical records, by mandating that the records of former presidents would automatically become the property of the federal government upon his leaving the Oval Office, and then transferred to the archivist of the United States, thereafter to be made available to the public after no more than 12 years.

Thus, the presidential papers of Ronald Reagan were due to be made public when George W. Bush took office in January 2001. However, in a White House memo[1] dated March 23, 2001, the Counsel to the President conveyed the following to U.S Archivist John W. Carlin:

Section 2(b) of Executive Order 12667, issued by former President Ronald Reagan on January 16, 1989, requires the Archivist of the United States to delay release of Presidential records at the instruction of the current President. On behalf of the President, I instruct you to extend for 90 days (until June 21, 2001) the time in which President Bush may claim a constitutionally based privilege over the Presidential records that former President Reagan, acting under Section 2204(a) of Title 4, has protected from disclosure for the 12 years since the end of his Presidency. This directive applies as well to the Vice Presidential records of former Vice President George H.W. Bush.

This instruction was repeated[1] on June 6, 2001, before the 90 days had elapsed, giving a new deadline of August 31, 2001. On the day of this deadline, Alberto Gonzales instructed the Archivist to wait a few additional weeks[1]. On 1 November 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, limiting the access to the records of former U.S. Presidents:

...reflecting military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, Presidential communications, legal advice, legal work, or the deliberative processes of the President and the President's advisers, and to do so in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977), and other cases...

So legislation was passed in order to make available the records of Presidents. Bush writes an EO which basically over turns that. Now I think this particular EO was later partially overturned through legislation. But legislation is needed to overturn previous legislation (or court ruling), Bush used the EO to legislate himself and close off access to documents and papers from previous Presidents. This is but one example. With so many EO's issued, it's not hard to imagine that there is a non-zero percentage of them which basically come down to acts of legislation.

Also in that thread were these doozies
12919

The Roosevelt Gold Confiscation Order Of April 3 1933.

Which are pretty bad abuses of EO

Let's not forget that Clinton misused the EO so badly that one was actually overturned, which rarely happens. The EO has been abused for sometime. It's time to put an end to it (the abuse, not the whole of the EO).
 
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That depends on a lot of things. The Executive has lattitude on how he enforces the law, which is often based on how he interprets the law.

Interpreting the law is the function of the courts. I say let the courts decide, by suing the Obama administration if it attempts to do his own interpretation.
 
I'm thinking you have somehow damaged your long term memory. We've done this exact song and dance before. Also, I think reading comprehension may be bad.

Hmmm, if we've done this song and dance before then it was reltively recently, hence, long term memory is irrelevant. Can't you get your personal attacks to make sense if nothing else?

I didn't say the authority to issue EO's is a legislative loophole. In fact, I said there is a time and place for the EO, there is a proper function for it. But that it has been abused, and has been used to circumvent the legislative process. I said those loopholes need to be closed. Not the whole of the EO, just constraints so that it can't be as easily abused.

I know that you didn't explicitly state it. But it's the obvious implication of your prior comments and again here. What loopholes need to be closed that would then prevent the so-called abuse of EO's?

I think a good example is EO 13233. It's an odd executive order

So legislation was passed in order to make available the records of Presidents. Bush writes an EO which basically over turns that. Now I think this particular EO was later partially overturned through legislation. But legislation is needed to overturn previous legislation (or court ruling), Bush used the EO to legislate himself and close off access to documents and papers from previous Presidents. This is but one example. With so many EO's issued, it's not hard to imagine that there is a non-zero percentage of them which basically come down to acts of legislation.

So, Bush was legislating when he issued this EO? What legislation was he creating and enacting? Of course, no legislation was created. Any plain reading of the EO itself reveals that the President was acting in accordance with the firmly established Supreme Court precedent of a President's constitutional authority that applies to presdential records (See the Nixon cases - US v Nixon and Nixon v Administrator of General Services).

Bush was defending against an encroachment of the constitutional basis of the President's privileges for confidential communications (military, diplomatic, or national security secrets (the state secrets privilege); communications of the President or his advisors (the presidential communications privilege); legal advice or legal work (the attorney-client or attorney work product privileges); and the deliberative processes of the President or his advisors (the deliberative process privilege)).

He was not legislating.

Also in that thread were these doozies
12919

The Roosevelt Gold Confiscation Order Of April 3 1933.

Which are pretty bad abuses of EO

Pretty bad abuses?? Is that how we're gonna describe this stuff? Pretty bad? Why not unconstitutional? Or are you just not ready to go that far, yet?

Perhaps you can describe how these EOs are representative of Presidents creating and enacting legislation?

In both, each President specified that he was acting in accordance with existing legislation. What is your problem with that? There is a clear legislative recourse if the Congress believes that the Executive has misinterpreted their legislation. Enact new legislation. The Presidents, via these EOs, were expressing their actions pursuant to the legislation they cited.

There's no constitutional abuse going on here. They is no "loophole" that is being exploited.

Rather, you're carping about these because someone else cited them in disagreement with them. :roll:

Let's not forget that Clinton misused the EO so badly that one was actually overturned, which rarely happens. The EO has been abused for sometime. It's time to put an end to it.

You have not cited any constitutional abuses of it. Just those that someone else thinks is an abuse. You have cited those which you think are "pretty bad." Color me underwhelmed.
 
Interpreting the law is the function of the courts. I say let the courts decide, by suing the Obama administration if it attempts to do his own interpretation.

Okay, look, I agree that judicial review is at least an implied function of the Courts. However, the problem here is that while Congress enacts laws it generally does without including the specific rules and regulations required to enforce them. Consequently, those rules are drafted by the executive agencies responsible for enforcing those laws. Example: look at various labor laws like FLSA. August 2004 saw major revisions to FLSA that were not enacted by Congress but drafted by the DoL with major input from all sorts of organizations, including employers, unions, Chambers of Commerce, etc. Hence, it's next to impossible for the Executive branch to avoid interpreting the legislation enacted by Congress.

The above problem is just another reason why there's so much concern about lobbying in Washington. Not only is lobbying happening in the Congress, but within the federal departments and agencies responsible for drafting the rules and regulations required to fulfill their enforcement and regulatory responsibilities.

So while I appreciate the self-evident declaration you've made about the roleof the courts, it just a practical consideration in Washington politics.

1st edit: By the way, the courts cannot and do not sue anyone.
2nd edit: Are you under the impression that the Congress does not also interpret the Constitution?
 
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Interpreting the law is the function of the courts.
Not in its entirety. Numerous federal agencies have the power to create regulations pursuant to federal law, with the specifics of those regulatuions left to the interpretation of those agencies. The President has the same power of interpretation when executing the laws of the nation, and when exercising his Article II powers.
 
1st edit: By the way, the courts cannot and do not sue anyone.
2nd edit: Are you under the impression that the Congress does not also interpret the Constitution?
"Interpretation" is a broad word.
All three branches, by necessity, "interpret" the Constitution and the law.
And while the court has a "final say", both the Legislature and the Executive have ways to remove the finality of that say.
 
Hmmm, if we've done this song and dance before then it was reltively recently, hence, long term memory is irrelevant. Can't you get your personal attacks to make sense if nothing else?

So it's your short term memory that's shot now...This was a couple of months ago, it would have been logged into long term memory, short term is very short term.

I know that you didn't explicitly state it. But it's the obvious implication of your prior comments and again here. What loopholes need to be closed that would then prevent the so-called abuse of EO's?

So you admit you were misrepresenting what I had written. Good for you.

So, Bush was legislating when he issued this EO? What legislation was he creating and enacting? Of course, no legislation was created. Any plain reading of the EO itself reveals that the President was acting in accordance with the firmly established Supreme Court precedent of a President's constitutional authority that applies to presdential records (See the Nixon cases - US v Nixon and Nixon v Administrator of General Services).

Bush was defending against an encroachment of the constitutional basis of the President's privileges for confidential communications (military, diplomatic, or national security secrets (the state secrets privilege); communications of the President or his advisors (the presidential communications privilege); legal advice or legal work (the attorney-client or attorney work product privileges); and the deliberative processes of the President or his advisors (the deliberative process privilege)).

He was not legislating.

Indeed he was, as there was legislation in place and Bush wrote an EO to overturn that legislation. BTW, another piece of legislation eventually reinstated the original law Bush overwrote with his EO. If there was contention on the legitimacy of the law and encroachment upon the power of the Executive office, we have a court system for that. The president can't write an EO to overturn law. That's an act of legislation.

You have not cited any constitutional abuses of it. Just those that someone else thinks is an abuse. You have cited those which you think are "pretty bad." Color me underwhelmed.

I don't take you for an impartial critic, I doubt you'd give my argument fair chance since I wrote them. The Executive can not legislate, that's what we have Congress for. Any act of legislation from the Executive is abuse of their power, and I have shown a few. Those abuses have to be stopped. The EO must be made to apply only to the execution of the Executives duties, and review and overturning of EO's needs to be made easier in order to ensure that the President only uses the EO's as they are designed and not a method to overturn or write legislation of his own.
 
"Interpretation" is a broad word.
All three branches, by necessity, "interpret" the Constitution and the law.
And while the court has a "final say", both the Legislature and the Executive have ways to remove the finality of that say.

The Court has a final say? That's a judicial invention. Nothing in the Constitution nor in the debates of the Framers says or intended the Court to be the final expositor of Constitutional meaning. I can concede judicial review being implied, but not judicial supremacy. Judicial supremacy completely upsets the constitutional concepts of co-equal branches and checks and balances.
 
The Court has a final say? That's a judicial invention. Nothing in the Constitution nor in the debates of the Framers says or intended the Court to be the final expositor of Constitutional meaning. I can concede judicial review being implied, but not judicial supremacy. Judicial supremacy completely upsets the constitutional concepts of co-equal branches and checks and balances.
Yes, well, good luck overturning Marbury.

The point of my post was that the "final say" of the court isn't really so final.
 
I don't think I'll ever understand the hatred that Conservatives have for San Francisco. Yeah, it's a pretty liberal minded place and it was the hub of the 60's drug era. So what? Honestly, why is San Francisco so horrible?

After living there, I can tell you the hatred for San Francisco comes from the smell. Some weird amalgam of homelessness, meth, chocolate, and butt grease.
 
The Court has a final say? That's a judicial invention. Nothing in the Constitution nor in the debates of the Framers says or intended the Court to be the final expositor of Constitutional meaning. I can concede judicial review being implied, but not judicial supremacy. Judicial supremacy completely upsets the constitutional concepts of co-equal branches and checks and balances.

You argue that judicial supremacy is wrong, but at the same time, argue that executive supremacy is correct. Of course, the real issue here is whether the concept of the "unitary executive" is itself constitutional. I would argue that it's not. If Bush feels that he should not enforce parts of legislation because he feels that it is unconstitutional, his recourse is to veto the legislation. He does not have the option to decide which parts of it he will enforce, since he took an oath to uphold the Constitution. That, in itself, is unconstitutional, and a violation of his oath of office. Same applies to Obama.

Here is a report by the American Bar Association that addresses this issue in a very straightforward manner, and in a way that is consistent with the Constitution.
 
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After living there, I can tell you the hatred for San Francisco comes from the smell. Some weird amalgam of homelessness, meth, chocolate, and butt grease.

I hear that combination smells like Chanel No. 5. :lol:

I always imagined San Francisco to be really beautiful, but that's probably only because I've seen Vertigo too many times. I'm sure it's changed significantly since then.
 
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