June 24, 2003
CHECKS AND BALANCES
Rep. Dick Gephardt obviously failed his high school civics class;
either that, or he's spent so much time in DC that he's become drunk on
the concept of arbitrary power. Speaking of the recent Supreme Court
decision on Michigan's affirmative action policy he asserts:
"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any
wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day,"
The Marbury vs. Madison case--near 200 years old--
established that the Supreme Court had the ability to rule acts of
Congress unconstitutional. The executive branch has the privilege of
nominating Court officials, subject to legislative approval, thus
closing the circle on a near-perfect set of checks and balances between
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The
fact that Gephardt is now saying that he wishes the executive branch to
have the power to arbitrarily overrule the findings of the Supreme
Court is tantamount to saying he'd like to burn the Constitution. This
might not be the most racy or controversial story of the week, but
Gephardt just made the most un-American promise in decades. He might
have just been talking out of his ass, but challenging the power of the
Court over the actions of the executive and legislative branches is on
the same par as southern legislators advocating secession prior to the
Civil War. In short, Rep. Dick Gephardt--in public--just claimed that
he is for a dictatorship of the executive branch. And he did so
unequivocally.
Posted by Lexiphane at June 24, 2003 10:14 AM
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