Presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation can be made
without confirmation by the President when the chamber is in recess: a so-called
recess appointment, wherein the appointee is allowed to serve until the end of the next congressional session. During the Bush II administration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began holding pro forma sessions every three days—a local Senator gavels the session in and immediately back out—to ensure that the Senate never went into recess and as a result, Bush stopped confirming recess appointments. When the Obama administration took over, the Republicans began holding the same pro forma sessions to prevent Obama from appointing any positions in recess. This week, Obama made four appointments, including Richard Cordray to the newly created role of director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,
despite the fact that the Senate is not in technical recess.
[more inside]
posted by disillusioned
on Jan 5, 2012 -
113 comments
In February of 2011, eleven students that attended
UC Irvine and
UC Riverside went to a fundraising speech featuring Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.,
Michael Oren, at the UC Irvine campus. During Oren's speech,
students would stand up, shout an objection to Oren's speech, and then would allow themselves to be escorted by security, essentially causing a "
heckler's veto." They were arrested, charged, and today
found guilty of
disrupting Oren's speech.
[more inside]
posted by jabberjaw
on Sep 23, 2011 -
59 comments
In a 32 page
report to Congress [pdf] President Obama concludes:
...the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent
with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require
further congressional authorization, because U.S. military
operations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities”
contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision.
Now, the
New York Times reports that this legal opinion was reached by rejecting the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department. It is instructive to
compare President Obama's actions with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
[more inside]
posted by ennui.bz
on Jun 20, 2011 -
240 comments
Fareed Zakaria: Are America's Best Days Behind Us? - "We have an Electoral College that no one understands and a Senate that doesn't work, with rules and traditions that allow a single Senator to obstruct democracy without even explaining why. We have a crazy-quilt patchwork of towns, municipalities and states with overlapping authority, bureaucracies and resulting waste. We have a political system geared toward ceaseless fundraising and pandering to the interests of the present with no ability to plan, invest or build for the future. And if one mentions any of this, why, one is being unpatriotic, because we have the perfect system of government, handed down to us by demigods who walked the earth in the late 18th century and who serve as models for us today and forever. America's founders would have been profoundly annoyed by this kind of unreflective ancestor worship." [
for/
against]
posted by kliuless
on Apr 17, 2011 -
93 comments
Right before the
10th anniversary of the first same-sex marriage in Canada, Saskatchewan's highest court has
ruled that a proposed law allowing provincial marriage commissioners to refuse to wed same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
Thecourt.ca gives its thoughts on the decision and the social context surrounding it.
posted by Lemurrhea
on Jan 19, 2011 -
40 comments
On August 30, 1978 a Polish airliner was
hijacked and redirected to Tempelhof airport in West Berlin. Torn between a policy of supporting defection and a recently-signed anti-hijacking treaty, the West German government ceded jurisdiction over the defendants to the United States government, which was still technically an occupying power and had an interest in the case because of the US Air Force Base at Tempelhof. The result was the one and only decision rendered by the United States Court for Berlin,
United States v. Tiede.
[more inside]
posted by jedicus
on Jan 7, 2011 -
13 comments
“It’s time to return America to the common sense conservative principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual responsibility.
The Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around. In order to return America to opportunity, responsibility, and success, we must reverse course and the Repeal Amendment is a step in that direction.”
—incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), on a proposed amendment allowing a 2/3 vote by the state governments to overturn any federal law or regulation.
[more inside]
posted by kipmanley
on Nov 30, 2010 -
134 comments
Today, on the last day of this year's term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its
opinion in
Ricci v.
DeStefano, the latest in the Court's line of decisions on
Title VII and the role of race in employment decisions. The famous case centers on white firefighters' claims of
race discrimination following the town of New Haven's decision to scuttle a
promotion exam after white test takers performed disproportionately better than black firefighters.
[more inside]
posted by Law Talkin' Guy
on Jun 29, 2009 -
89 comments
The Obama Justice Department has
released nine
legal memos from the Bush administration that assert broad extra-Constitutional powers for the president. The memos assert that both the First and Fourth Amendments may be subordinated to the needs of wartime.
[more inside]
posted by EarBucket
on Mar 2, 2009 -
81 comments
The previously-
mentioned Summums want to
place their own monument in a park which contains the Ten Commandments, making the Supreme Court's
heads explode in a a hilariously weird
oral argument[pdf]:
"Scalia: I don't know what that means. You keep saying it, and I don't know what it means. [...] Breyer: Suppose that there certain messages that private people had like "eat vitamins"—and then somebody comes along with a totally different content, "ride the roller coaster," and they say this part of the park is designed to get healthy children, not put children at risk." [more inside]
posted by Non Prosequitur
on Nov 13, 2008 -
116 comments
Crimes of Necessity On Oct. 14 2008 the B.C. Supreme Court handed down a
landmark decision declaring that, due to the lack of adequate homeless shelters, it was unconstitutional for the City of Victoria to prevent homeless individuals from erecting temporary structures for protection from the elements. The ruling culminates a multi-year campaign by
David Arthur Johnston to establish the "right to sleep". As the decision is based on an interpretation of Canada's
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the ruling applies to every municipality in Canada. In the wake of the decision, Victoria City Council passed a resolution which stipulates that such shelters must
be removed by 7:00 each morning.
[more inside]
posted by dinsdale
on Oct 26, 2008 -
100 comments
When Judges Make Foreign Policy. "In a globalized, post-9/11 age, decisions made by the Supreme Court are increasingly shaping America's international relations. When the next justice is appointed, our place in the world may well hang in the balance."
posted by homunculus
on Sep 29, 2008 -
11 comments
These are the documents that started it all.
The Charters of Freedom. As the USA celebrates another Independence Day, the National Archives presents the historical development of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and their impact upon the nation and the world.
posted by netbros
on Jul 4, 2008 -
56 comments
“You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A
Vanity Fair reporter investigates the chain of command that tossed out the Geneva Conventions and instituted coercive interrogation techniques -- some might call them torture or even
war crimes -- in Bush's Global War on Terror. UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo's now-obsolete 81-page memo to the Pentagon in 2003 [available as PDFs
here and here] was crucial, offering a broad range of legal justifications and deniability for disregarding international law in the name of
"self-defense." Others
say that Yoo was just making "a clear point about the limits of Congress to intrude on the executive branch in its exercise of duties as Commander in Chief." [previously
here and
here.]
posted by digaman
on Apr 3, 2008 -
76 comments
A very special '
This American Life' about an administration with the endemic belief that laws only apply to the little people, and a limitless refusal to concede on even petty issues, no matter the costs. The highlight is about immigrant widows of US citizens (30:50). The program also discusses the constitutional beliefs of the presidential candidates.
[more inside]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94
on Apr 2, 2008 -
43 comments
Is John McCain eligible to become president of the U.S.? He was born on a military base in the Panama Canal zone, which was not sovereign US territory. The
Constitution provides:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. Is McCain a natural born citizen?
posted by caddis
on Feb 28, 2008 -
217 comments
A Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court in Vermont has ruled that a man allegedly caught with child pornography on his laptop need not reveal his PGP password (yes, authorities shut down the laptop and now can't get at the alleged porn) pursuant to the Fifth Amendment's protections against self incrimination. The decision is
here[PDF]. A decent write-up (from CNET of all places) is
here. This appears to be the first decision ever to directly address this issue, and many commentators had thought it would come out differently. The major question is whether revealing one's PGP key is "testimonial" or not. According to the
Supreme Court, giving up fingerprints or blood samples isn't, nor is standing for a lineup, nor is handing over the key to a safe, but if it's
combination safe, well maybe that's
different. Never let it be said that your Fifth Amendment rights are easy.
posted by The Bellman
on Dec 15, 2007 -
57 comments
Two executives of the alternative newspaper chain
Village Voice Media were arrested last night after running a story about
grand jury subpoenas [PDF] they received seeking reporters' notes and information on who visits their
Phoenix New Times Web site. The article, titled "
Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution," claims that the grand jury investigation stems from a long-running feud with controversial county sheriff
Joe Arpaio (who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff"). The subpoenas demand New Times turn over all notes, tapes and records of the reporters who have ever written about Arpaio. The subpoenas also seek online profiles of anyone who read four specific articles about Arpaio and profiles of anyone who visited the paper's Web site since Jan. 1, 2004. Also sought is information on what Web users did while on the site.
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Oct 19, 2007 -
58 comments
to gather information about Americans' phone records --
... the NSA had approached the company (Qwest) about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.
...Nacchio's account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts. ... -- The Administration's crimes and illegal spying on all of us and Quest's punishment for not going along with their plans.
posted by amberglow
on Oct 13, 2007 -
76 comments
Never in History Have Generals Revolted Against a War Like They are About IRAQ. "I (insert name), having been appointed a (insert rank) in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document, do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God."
Unlike the
enlisted folks, officers only swear an allegiance to the Constitution.
posted by augustweed
on Sep 26, 2007 -
50 comments
Constitutional Showdowns. Eric Posner and
Adrian Vermeule analyze constitutional showdowns, ask what rate and level of showdowns would be socially optimal, and ask whether socially optimal showdowns will be supplied by government institutions acting to promote their policy preferences and institutional interests.
posted by dios
on Aug 10, 2007 -
9 comments
