- The President can be removed from office by Congress at any time, for virtually any reason (the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the Constitution is left entirely up to Congress to interpret - the Supreme Court has consistently refused to weigh in on what this means).
- Congress, by getting a 2/3 majority, can pass any law they want, at any time, and there's nothing the President can do about it.
- Congress can effectively end any war by cutting off funding for the fighting of it - this is essentially what they did during the Vietnam War.
As far as turning the U.S. into a police state...it might be helpful to read a description in Parade Magazine of daily life in North Korea (published in Feb 2005):
- The Ministry of People’s Security places spies in workplaces and neighborhoods to inform on anyone who criticizes the regime, even at home.
- All radios and TV sets are fixed to receive only government stations.
- Disloyalty to Kim Jong Il and his late father, Kim Il Sung, is a punishable crime: Offenses include allowing pictures of either leader to gather dust or be torn or folded.
- The population is divided into “loyalty groups.” One-third belong to the “hostile class.” These people receive the worst jobs and housing and may not live in the capital, Pyongyang.
- Below the hostiles are the estimated 250,000 held in prison camps, some for crimes allegedly committed by relatives.
- Executions often are performed in public.
3 comments:
Sure the U.S. is no North Korea. But a police state isn't really the same as a totalitarian one. The old South Africa was a police state as well as an apartheid one, but wasn't totalitarian.
Congress can pass laws. George W. asserts that by means of "signing statements" he can refuse to enforce provisions he doesn't like under a bizarre theory called "the unitary executive." A 2/3 majority of Congress can overturn a veto, but not a "signing statement."
Bush also appears to regard his powers as Commander-in-Chief as virtually unlimited and subject to no accountability. Interestingly, the Roman title from which our word emperor comes, "Imperator," means chief commander. It is not clear how far the new right-wing majority Supreme Court might defer to such claims.
And frankly, the nominal powers of Congress are little solace when Congress is complicit the power grabs and attacks on civil liberties. They passed the law purporting to suspend habeas corpus and purporting to subject persons to punishment for reporting or discussing secret police actions by the feds. One would think this wouldn't pass constitutional muster, but again, with the high court being who it is, who knows?
Maybe we haven't got all the way to police state yet, but we're several big steps down the path, and certainly have attained a government of men not laws, rather than the other way around.
I just disagree (respectfully). Signing statements have no actual legal force, according to virtually all legal scholars. They only take effect when the president signs a bill into law, so if he vetoes a law and congress passes it with a 2/3 majority, there is no "signing statement."
The main point I'm trying to make is that congress does have significant "teeth"...they just have not used them nearly as much as they could have. I actually think that has changed somewhat in Bush's second term, and that's a good thing. Even if there were a good president in office, the give-and-take between congress and the white house is a healthy thing.
People should read this.
Post a Comment