This entire Roll Call article is a needed informative look at the issue I attacked in “The New Take Care Clause” post below. RTWT, but this is it’s most striking bit:
“It’s a fascinating transformation for Obama,” said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who has become one of the administration’s chief legal critics.
“He rightfully criticized President Bush for violating the separation of powers and using signing statements to rewrite legislation, but Obama has been far more aggressive in circumventing Congress and far more successful in creating an imperial presidency,” he said.
You see, Turley disagrees with the interpretation of Bush’s signing statements that I learned from the (excellent!!!) textbook American Constitutional Law , authored by Ralph Rossum and G. Alan Tarr, and which I briefly parroted in my post. (Rossum, FYI, has written perhaps the most authoritative interpretation of Scalia’s jurisprudence so far. A favorable interpretation.) So Turley would want to school yours truly on signing statements; and Rossum and Tarr would want to school him. I don’t have the schooling on signing statements yet to say much more than that. But back to Turley on Obama:
Turley, who was a House page in the late 1970s, remembers lawmakers who fiercely defended the prerogatives of Congress even from the president of their own party. That is rarely the case today.
Turley cited the president’s decision not to enforce immigration laws with respect to young immigrants as a particularly egregious example — and one that was cheered by top Democrats.
“The president disagreed with Congress on immigration law. His response was to effectively negate the law . . . . That rocks our system to the core,” he said.
“What I find curious is how quiet Democrats have been . . . ”
Indeed, I find that silence, on a whole host of issues, far more obscene than anything Obama has done. He is after all, one man. In a key sense, merely one Democrat among many. So I repeat what I said back in March, when I called for more Democrat Leaders to show themselves to be Forthright Supporters of the Constitution:
Moderates, fight! For the soul of the Democratic Party!
I will be repeating it often.
