2 weeks Ago
“We are a nation of laws.” Over my long life, I’ve heard that phrase, or one of its near variants, repeated by politicians, professors, lawyers, and talking heads. The message is always clear.
We the people select representatives who enact laws that govern us and protect us from ourselves, each other, and, in some instances, players outside of the country. We support these laws because we caused them to be enacted and because they apply to everyone. The idea has been one of our nation’s ideals.
While a careful reading of our history can identify several times when we fell short of the ideal, it has usually been true. What’s happening now is beyond any norm and far exceeds previous transgressions. For those who might have missed this day in your high school civics class, the U.
S. Constitution is the highest law of the land. It is the framework that defines the whole.
It created three branches of government. Each has its unique powers and responsibilities. The legislative branch makes laws, including laws that deal with the use of public funds.
The judicial branch evaluates laws. The executive branch executes and administers the laws. Each branch must respect the powers and actions of the other branches.
None can assume powers not assigned to it under the constitution. Now we have an executive branch that seems intent upon trampling of the powers of the other branches and defying established laws. This is most obvious in the execution of laws enacted by Congress for the use of money.
The Constitution clearly assigns that responsibility to the legislative branch (Congress). Fifty years ago, in response to actions by the Nixon administration, Congress made this even more clear with a statute that said that the president did not have the authority to withhold money from the programs and purposes prescribed by Congress. But without Congressional action, funding for many federal programs has been frozen.
Whole agencies have been shuddered and the people who depend on their services left in limbo. Lawsuits have been brought. Injunctions have been issued.
But the response of the executive has been slow — of course, we’ll comply, but you didn’t mean today! Congress has also passed laws defining how federal employees in various classes can be hired and fired. In defiance of those laws, and under the cover of chasing waste, fraud, and abuse, thousands of federal workers have been terminated, including half the workers at the Department of Education, all of USAID, a big slice of the IRS in the middle of tax season, many of the weather forecasters who give us warnings of impending storms, scientists who oversee the inspection of our food and drugs or do research on diseases. And many more.
Congress has given the executive the power to establish tariffs when an emergency exists. We now have simultaneous emergencies with Canada, Mexico, the EU, Japan and China, creating a trade war. Congress has the authority to overrule a bogus emergency, but it hasn’t.
The deportation of migrants is taking too long when the pesky rules are followed. Solution — resurrect a 1700s law that requires a state of war and has only been used three times, 1812, WWI, and WWII. More injunctions.
More foot dragging. This essay could go on for several thousand words, but you should get the point. We are either on the cusp of a major challenge to our way of governing ourselves, or we are well into that challenge, but haven’t yet recognized it.
Most elected officials in both parties seem to be slow in understanding the gravity of the situation. They need to wake up, protect the powers of their institutions, and protect our tradition of the rule of law..
