All Posts Tagged With: "constitution"

“Plebiscitary Democracy: Political scientists use this to describe those systems wherein a leader is elected but once elected has almost all of the power. . . .Elect the President. Let him win and then get out of his way” — Barney Frank from “The Nation” magazine describing The Presidency of G. W. Bush

And in The Nation, Barney Frank goes on to describe the Bush Presidency thus:

“We have historically talked about checks, about balances, about our three branches of government. We have contrasted that to the more unitary governments in other parts of the world, even democratic ones. We have separate legislative, judiciary and executive branches.

This is an Administration which considers checks and balances to be a hindrance. They believe that democracy consists essentially of electing a President every four years and entrusting to that President almost all of the important decisions.

I believe we have seen a seizing of power that should not have been seized by the executive branch. But thanks to the acquiescence of a Republican majority in this Congress, driven in part by ideological sympathy, the President has been allowed to be the decider. So we have had a very different kind of American government. It is democracy, but it is closer to plebiscitary democracy than it is to the traditional democracy of America.”

What Mr Frank is effectively saying is that once G. W. Bush came to power, he:

• Ignored legislation passed into Law, and simply did things his way. An example is The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by which the President and Congress together set forward a method for wiretapping and eavesdropping in cases where we thought there were foreign threats to the US. This legislation was passed 30 years ago and has been obeyed by Carter, Bush Snr. and Clinton within the full requirements of law. Bush has ignored this legislation and the Law.

• By ignoring the legislation, Bush is effectively doing what he wants, not what the people or Congress want.

• Bush has been able to do this because of his interpretation of the power contained in the “vesting clause” of the Constitution which reads, “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” This short sentence in the US Constitution allows the President to ignore legislation, ignore Congress and ignore his people. He does what he likes in other words.

• And logically, if you carry this misuse of power to extremes, then it can be said, looking at Bush’s performance, that he has gone against his own US Constitution.

The Final Word rests with Barney Frank:

“We had the Patriot Act situation, where the Judiciary Committee unanimously adopted a very reasonable, balanced bill, which gave law enforcement expanded powers to fight terrorism but had some safeguards against abuse.

But the Attorney General said, No, we do not like that bill. Here is a new one. And a new bill was written overnight and “debated” on the floor of the House with no ability to amend it.

These examples demonstrate that Congress was now ready to do whatever the Administration wanted. They don’t want Congress to agree on their ability to detain people at Guantánamo or track terrorist financing because accepting the right of Congress to agree with them implies that at some future date Congress might disagree. And plebiscitary democracy has no room for Congressional disagreement once the President has made his decision. So we have a situation of unilateralism and a refusal even to take Congress in when Congress wants to be a willing partner.”

This behaviour by the Bush Administration, who indeed have the ability to do as they like in government is, at best, a poor hash of the US Constitution and democracy, and at its worst is nothing more than A Banana Republic government dictatorship without any binding or effective Constitution at all.

The Republicans have precious little to be excited about these days. Things are looking bleak. The evangelical Christians aren’t excited about John McCain becoming president, so their support is less than enthusiastic.  A feeling of utter desperation must be why a group of conservative right-wing Republicans recently pulled the Federal Marriage Amendment out of the closet, so to speak. Only this time it’s called the Protect Marriage Act. It’s impossible to keep the name straight anymore but, regardless of what it’s called, what this law seeks to do is write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Thankfully, this particular piece of legislation has a very long shot at even getting a hearing. Still, it’s particularly irksome on two fronts. First, this continuous attack on the Constitution is getting to be the Theater of the Absurd. Enough is enough. Second, we gay folk are tired of being used as a polarizing issue when all we really want are our civil rights as guaranteed in said Constitution (not ’special’ rights as the conservatives would have you believe). I discovered the ultimate in hypocrisy when I went to look the bill up and discovered that two of its cosponsors are none other than Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), two far-right conservatives whose sexual exploits make a mockery of heterosexual marriage.

For those of you who need a review, we’ll start with Senator Vitter. During his campaign for the senate, the good Mr. Vitter was accused of carrying on a rather lengthy tryst with a French Quarter prostitute. At the time he labeled the accusation as “absolutely and completely untrue.” It was after he was elected that his telephone number was found in the phone records of the famous ‘DC Madam.’ At that point denial seemed silly, so instead he pulled the rehabilitation and reconciliation routine out of his pocket. “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling,” said Vitter. Signing on to write discrimination into the Constitution must be his way of purging his guilt.

Senator Larry Craig’s sponsorship of this bill is even more absurd. On August 27, 2007, we learned from the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, that Craig had been arrested trolling around the men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport looking for extramarital homosexual favors. Unfortunately, he was soliciting homosexual favors from an undercover policeman. This is the same Senator Craig who appeared on Meet the Press at the height of President Clinton’s impeachment trial (1999) and informed Tim Russert that the majority of citizens in Idaho thought that Bill Clinton was a “nasty, bad, naughty boy.” Yes, those are his exact words. What do you suppose they think of Senator Craig if they think Bill Clinton was bad, naughty and nasty?

Senator Craig was accused of playing ‘footsy’ in the bathroom stall with the officer, who was in the adjoining stall. After much wrangling and gnashing of teeth, the charges were reduced and Craig pled guilty to a lesser charge of ‘disorderly conduct.’ However, there had been rumors and innuendo about Craig’s homosexuality in the past and this incident brought it all front and center once again. In late 2007, the Idaho Statesman ran an exhaustively-researched story revealing that Craig has been accused of having a history of homosexual encounters dating back to 1967. (For the record, he has had more than one men’s room encounter.) No fewer than eight gay men came forward to tell stories to the Statesman of having had sex with Craig after seeing him deny his homosexuality on television. Should he resign if he’s a homosexual? Hell, no.

There are gays in office who serve both their constituents and the government admirably. Likewise, there are people in office who have done far worse than solicit sex with someone. (Just take a look at our imperial president’s dismal record of service to this country. He still has his job.) However, Larry Craig should come clean. It’s difficult to believe that all of these gay men are uniting to spread lies about Craig. If the prostitute-loving David Vitter is still serving, Larry Craig should be allowed to serve. After all, Vitter could just as easily have been caught in a sting and charged. What cooked Vitter’s goose was that his name was posted on the web by the D.C. Madam herself. What neither of these clowns should be doing is preventing those who truly do want to be married, regardless of their sexual orientation, from doing so. This is a double dose of hypocrisy.

Our third horseman is still a babe in the woods compared to Vitter and Craig, but no less hypocritical. This guy hasn’t even been elected yet and he’s got a first-class scandal under his belt. His name is Mike Erickson and he’s running on a pro-life ticket in Oregon’s 5^th Congressional District. What’s Erickson’s transgression? How about the fact that he’s running on a pro-life ticket but paid for his girlfriend’s abortion. Perhaps ‘girlfriend’ isn’t an appropriate term here. Let’s just say he had an intimate relationship with someone who became pregnant in 2000. According to the woman, “not only did he pick me up and drive me to the abortion clinic, he completely encouraged me to do that.” The woman also revealed that he withdrew $300 from his bank account to pay for the procedure. Of course, Erickson is claiming that he didn’t know he was paying for that type of medical procedure.

The unnamed woman, a Republican, first thought about coming forward when Erickson ran (and lost) in 2006. She had received a mailer highlighting his endorsement by Oregon Right to Life and was disgusted by the fact that he was running on a pro-life ticket. However, she backed down after setting up an interview because she was afraid of the repercussions of coming forward. In 2008, she decided to share her story with the Portland Tribune. The story appeared on the front page on May 12. The 33-year-old Clackamas County woman states, “I think it’s completely hypocritical that he would solicit or ask for an endorsement from Right to Life.” There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around on this one.

According to Lois Anderson, political director for Oregon Right to Life, she spoke to the woman at length back in 2006 and found her to be credible. She also spoke to Erickson, who denied it all. Since the allegations were uncorroborated, Oregon Right to Life allowed its 2006 endorsement of Erickson to stand. Oregon Right to Life stated that the woman had been clearly traumatized by the abortion and the organization would have no choice but to give an explanation if they retracted their endorsement. In Anderson’s mind, there was no way to do this without revealing information that was harmful to the woman. “I don’t have any reason to doubt her,” Anderson states, “I think the fuzziness is because of the trauma.” In 2008, Oregon Right to Life did not endorse Erickson. Instead, they endorsed his Republican challenger, Kevin Mannix, also running on a pro-life ticket.

What’s the point? The point is that government is a haven for hypocrites. Public servants are neither here to tell people how to live their personal lives nor to legislate morality. The U.S. Constitution is very clear about its basic tenets: All men are created equal. All men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That means that everyone has the right to marry. There is nothing in our Constitution now that denies same-sex marriage. Yet, the threat has been introduced because politicians have muddied the waters by blurring the line between church and state. Our government isn’t based on the Bible, but on the Constitution. I’m confident that our founding fathers would never approve of the Constitution being amended for the purpose of denying a specific group of people its civil rights. While many of them were God-fearing men, they clearly understood that religion and politics do not mix.