Sunday, September 25, 2016

The Malheur Occupation

The Bundy clan and their pocket Constitutions were not the only reason that I decided to do this review, but there was an influence. So many people complain about infringement on their Constitutional rights, and yet what they are saying does not sound quite right. After all, I hadn't really read the whole thing since high school, so maybe it was time to do it again.

Nothing in all of the review seemed to offer even a tiny toehold to the occupiers. I thought I'd read at one point that it had to do with an overly expansive reading of how the rules set up for Washington DC affect the federal government's ability to own land, but that doesn't really fly. Doing some internet searches, some have suggested an opposite interpretation of Article IV (section 3, clause 2):

http://lawatthemargins.com/2331-2/

That at least relates to land ownership, but again, you have to think it means the opposite of what it says.

I also read some reasoning that once Oregon became a state that it would invalidate federal claims to land, but even if you went there, then any actions should be on the state of Oregon's behalf, which they clearly were not.

So it was puzzling, but I think the answer to this conundrum is found not in the United States Constitution, but in other contrasts between things that the occupiers said and did.

Consider that the Bundy's bragged about how their actions in Nevada were peaceful and effective, without acknowledging that among the people they drew to the area to stand up to authority were people that killed police shortly after.

Consider that they said that if the Hammond's didn't want them there, or that if the locals did not want them there, they would go. After the Hammond's and many local people made it clear they did not want the occupiers there, they stayed.

Consider that Ammon Bundy is calling himself a political prisoner. He is not in jail for heading an opposition party, or voting wrong, or running an underground newspaper or radio broadcast. He is in jail for illegal actions.

We could probably go on quite a bit, but I don't think there's a point. They can continue to hold their unique interpretations of the law, but they will be judged by a more conventional and fact-based interpretation of the law, as it should be.

Their real motivation seems to be that they should be able to do and have what they want. So if they believe that it's okay to not pay grazing fees, but continue to graze, and not turn over land that they don't own and aren't paying for, well that's what they want!

If they protest to defend ranchers who have set illegal fires, endangering some lives and threatening others, when even those particular criminals don't want the protest, so what? This is what they want!

It is interesting to me that their political protests seemed to be increasing at about the same time that their outside success in the world was decreasing. I guess failed business owners have more time on their hands anyway, but it seems like there might be a lesson on toxic masculinity there. However, that's something I tend to address more on a different blog.

So, for this particular post, it seems more like this is a case of those people who mistake their First Amendment right of freedom of religion for the right to impose that religion on others, and get offended when others live differently. And the only thing I can really say to that is that is not how the Constitution works. Fortunately! It would be awful if it worked that way.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment

XXVII
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

This ended up being the most surprising amendment for me. I knew what it was about, and seeing that it was the most recent, I had thought that it came about sometime around Newt Gingrich and a Congress full of hostility and spite.

It was actually one of the first amendments proposed, and it received votes for ratification, though not in the timeliest manner. I'm linking to the Wikipedia article. While it is common for their amendment articles to have a list of which states ratified it and by which dates, the range on this one is fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Six states ratified it between 1789 and 1792, then Ohio in 1873, and the next vote happened over one hundred years later. Many of the votes were protests. New Jersey and Rhode Island rejected the amendment in the 18th century, but ratified it in the 20th.

Of course the protest votes do indicate some of that political animosity I suspected, and it may not be a coincidence that the college student whose research led to its eventual ratification was studying in Texas, but it's an interesting interlude.

It does seem like the kind of thing where it would be fine written in procedures or legal code or rules of order somewhere, rather than being specifically enshrined as an amendment, but fine. Americans may mistrust their government, and they may wish to punish a legislator for increasing pay by voting out the greedy lawmaker.

So be it.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment

XXV
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.


This is a fairly long amendment, due to its specificity, and that was exactly its point.

The processes had been mostly in place before. By the time of the amendment there had been presidential deaths from assassination and illness, impeachment, and long periods without a vice president. There had also been a time of an incapacitated president (Woodrow Wilson) where the situation was hidden by his wife and doctor.

Hammering out all of the details took a while, with many different proposals. In the case of Senator Estes Kefauver - for whom the disability question was very important - his own death kept him from seeing how things turned out.

However, since its ratification we have been through Nixon's resignation and an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. And even though the reaction of Reagan's Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, to the attempt ("I am in control here") while Vice President Bush was out of town seemed a little eager, things have nonetheless gone smoothly.

The amendment appears to have worked out.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment

XXIV

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This is another one that I thought of treating with other amendments. It relates to the Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14, and 15), and yet part of the need for the 24th amendment is that after the Reconstruction Amendments a poll tax was one method used to keep the newly enfranchised from exercising it.

It also could go with some of the other amendments we treated together recently (19, 23, and 26), as different groups were given the right to vote, and yet the poll tax has also been used against poor white men, who previously always had the vote.

And so we return to that Section 2, and its many friends. We know that the nature of men will constantly work on new ways to strip the rights from others, and we must continually be on guard, via new legislation and enforcement of existing legislation, to keep the vote safe for all.