As many on this blog know, I often object to those who criticize our Constitution as a way of excusing their circumvention of civil liberties or the separation of powers. Some in the Bush Administration took that position in suggesting that our Constitution was somehow a contributor to the 9-11 attacks — in their push to pass the Patriot Act. President Obama seems to take up a similar lament to rationalize his repeated violation of the separation of powers in recent years. Obama raised the issue with donors to suggest that the Framers got it wrong in their design of Congress and Article I of the Constitution. Indeed, he appears to be a critic of the “Great Compromise” that gave small states an equal voice in the Senate. It is of course not his assuming legislative and judicial powers in the creation of what I have called an “uber presidency” that fundamentally changed our system. There is no real need for compromise of any kind in the new emerging model of executive power so it should not be a surprise that “Great Compromise” would appear particularly precious and unnecessary.
I recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. Obama has repeatedly suspended provisions of the health care law and made unilateral changes that were previously rejected by Congress. He has also moved hundreds of millions from one part of the Act to other parts without congressional approval. Now, his administration is reportedly changing key provisions of the ACA to potentially make billions of dollars available to the insurance industry in a move that was never debated, let alone approved, by the legislative branch. I just ran another column this month listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority.
President Obama is now responding by attacking the Constitution and saying that James Madison and others simply got it wrong by guaranteeing equal voting in the United States Senate. Of course, he has not shared such views with the public. Instead, he discussed them with a small group of Democratic donors who are facing increasing opposition from friends in supporting Obama. Obama met with these donors in a private event in Chicago and put the blame on the Framers: “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage.” These comments also appear on an official transcript. The President does not call to change the Constitution but laments about the structure of the Senate and the equality of small and large states.
Not to spoil the new post hoc spin but I find it less than obvious. The “disadvantage” that the President has been complaining about is the refusal of Congress to do what he has demanded. Ironically, he has faced more consistent opposition in the House, not the Senate. The House is divided according to population, which Obama appears to prefer.
The problem is not the Constitution but the division in the country. We are divided on a great number of issues. Roughly fifty percent of Americans hate Obamacare and want it repealed. Immigration and other issues continue to divide voters in both parties. While we have a representative democracy, it still has democratic elements. Congress reflects the divisions in the country. When we go through periods of division, fewer things get done and really big reforms or changes are particularly difficult. However, such division is no license to “go at it alone” as the President has promised. The Madisonian system is designed to force compromise and to vent the factional pressures that have torn apart other nations. That is precisely why the President’s actions are so dangerous. They are creating a dominant branch in a tripartite system that allows for unilateral action from a president. Such powers will outlast this president and will likely come back to haunt those Democrats and liberals who are remaining silent (or even applauding) this president’s actions.
As for the Senate, the “Great Compromise” in 1787 fit well in the anti-factional design of the Article One — even though Madison himself was once an advocate for proportional distribution and did not agree that large states would join together against small states. Where other constitutions (as in France) tended to allow factional pressures to explode outwardly, the U.S. Constitution allows them to implode within the legislative branch — funneling these pressures into a process where disparate factional disputes can be converted into majoritarian compromises. This happens through the interactions of houses with different constituencies and interests. The House tends to be the most responsive and desirous of the fastest reaction to national problems. After all, the members are elected every two years and represent smaller constituencies. The Senate has longer term and larger constituencies. It tends to put the breaks on legislative impulse. At the same time, the mix of different interests from large and small states changing the dimension of legislative work in the Senate — adding adding pressure for compromise and reevaluation.
The Great Compromise was forged after various plans from Virginia, New Jersey, and other states were debated. There was considerable support for bicameralism though William Paterson of the New Jersey suggested a single house system (with equal voting for the states). Some like Roger Sherman sought proportional representation in the “lower” house while guaranteeing equal representation in the “upper” house. Virginia delegates like Edmund Randolph and James Madison (as well as Alexander Hamilton) thought it should all be proportional in a bicameral system.
The conference rejected the New Jersey plan which would have created an unicameral legislature with one vote per state. However, the convention deadlocked on the Virginia plan. The issue was referred to committee and out emerged the Great Compromise or what was known as the Connecticut or Sherman compromise. The proposal was put forward by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut to blend the Virginia (large-state) and New Jersey (small-state) proposals. Sherman called for “That the proportion of suffrage in the 1st. branch [house] should be according to the respective numbers of free inhabitants; and that in the second branch or Senate, each State should have one vote and no more.”
There is a moderating influence that has come from the additional constituency factor of small versus large states in the Senate. In fairness to Obama, the division does appear more driven by party politics than geographics today. I am not convinced that the large versus small states are a defining political line in today’s politics and Madison may have been right about that point. However, some of the divisions between the parties reflect such geographic elements. Western and Southern politicians tend to be less supportive of environmental issues, national parks and other areas that reflect their interests of their states and citizens. In the end, however, the “disadvantage” faced by Obama is found in both houses, not just the Senate. Moreover, polls show considerable opposition in the areas where Obama is acting unilaterally like immigration.
As for the House, Obama complained that he is also at a disadvantage because “Democrats tend to congregate a little more densely, which puts us at a disadvantage in the House.” That is a perfectly valid call for political action. The Senate comments tend to reflect a growing criticism among some supporters that the Congress is rigged against the Democrats due to the equality of state voting.
Ironically, if there is one provision that could clearly be changed as outmoded it is the electoral college, which has consistently dysfunctional effects on our system. Rather than change the fundamental structure of Congress, that would be a change worthy of presidential advocacy. The changes that have occurred in the Constitution makes this relatively small provision a growing anomaly in our elections. The equality of states in the Senate is neither the cause of the current deadlock (given the role of the House) nor does it excuse the President’s circumvention. It seems to be an obvious post-rationalization for acts of circumvention.
So here is my only request. This is not the first veiled criticism of the Constitution by leaders of both parties. I have long ago stopped hoping that our leaders would maintain a logical and efficient approach to taxes, the environment, education, and other areas. I have come to accept that the executive and legislative branches will continue to waste hundreds of billions and harass trends toward growth. However, I continue to believe that our system can carry the huge costs of both branches and still benefit our citizens. The only limited request is that the two parties with a stranglehold on this nation leave the basic principles of the Constitution alone. That is all. They can destroy the economy, the educational system, and even global stability. However, the Constitutional structure was given to us by the Framers and has served us well. It has certainly served us better than our leaders.
In other words, what is “obvious” Mr. President is that it is not the Constitution that is the problem.
leej, I assume you’ve tried the non narcotic Gabapentin?
KarenS a fertilized egg relies on the woman’s body to give it nutrients and what it needs to live. It is not only after viability.
Paul, I have been tried on, among others, percoset, Darvon, codeine, fentynel, IV lidocaine, morphine, tincture of opium. Narcotics do not help much, if at all, in neuropathic pain and some other pain disorders.
As for if your pain is so bad you should not be able to get out of bed, that is the fight that many in pain have and are to be commended for the strength and perseverance they show in getting up and out of bed everyday when it is possible. You truly don’t understand what chronic pain is or how it effects patients, or the fight patients put up against it. (I could not tolerate any touch to my face, I had my face washed under general anaesthesia every few months for a few years, willing to take the risks associated with a general in order to help an eye situation arising from the lack of sensation in the eye as well as a facial paralysis (another side effect of the medical malpractice.) Washing the face helped the pain somewhat for the few months, sometimes only weeks until the area of the face and hair stayed got the thick layers of dirt (from eye ointment and the air)
Most of us do soldier on.
(some patients with an addiction history will not be given narcotic medication. That is a balancing act but the number of those patients is very small and not representative of what the gov’t has estimated to be 100 + million people living with chronic pain. http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Relieving-Pain-in-America-A-Blueprint-for-Transforming-Prevention-Care-Education-Research/Report-Brief.aspx
Havent looked at all comments yet but Annie, youre right addiction is not themain issue when treating those with chronic intractable pain. I have a feeling Paul thinks those who have complex regiona pain syndrome (CRPS), trigeminal neuralgia and other neuropathies, peripheral/cranial, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and so many more have pain that is akin to that of a sprained ankle. You need to learn about chronic pain and the disorders that have it as a mail or sole symptom.
As for my situation actually brain surgery is one of the main treatments for trigeminal neuralgia. Unfortunately mine left with some that is untreatable as well as anaesthesia dolorosa (phantom pain (neuropathic pain) This is the result of proven malpractice unfortunately.
Here is a link to a study, you can google to find more, since you seem to doubt the veracity of what I have written: re marijuana and neuropathic pain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950178/
(By the way, 6 of my surgeries were to try and fix the trigeminal pain, the others were for implantation and removal of a brain stimulator implant. I wrote the number wrong btw, I have had 12 surgeries, I am now trying to decide if I can tolerate having a 13th to either put the implant back (because it failed about a year ago) or have another brain surgery that for me carries more substantial risks then for others because of the damage already done.
Paul, if you really want to know what living with chronic intractable pain is like here is lik to my story on CNNIreport: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1032817
Annie – I was refering to my own post at 2:41 and 2:51. I haven’t read your scenario so don’t know if it applies.
The Hippocratic Oath means “Do no harm,” not “incur no cost.” It’s about ethics not finances.
Most med schools have either modified the Hippocratic Oath or do not require it anymore.
Scott Supak
Dredd, he’s arguing with me about whether denying medicinal marijuana to patients is torture. I say it is. He says it’s not. Of course, he won’t answer the water boarding question.
“(President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail)”
Hilarious.
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Denying medicine to an ill person who needs it is torture, because it is a matter of degree, and “lighter” torture is still torture.
No doctor could deny an available medicinal remedy to a patient and still claim to adhere to the Hippocratic Oath.
Dredd – sometimes that medicine is not in the patient’s formulary. That is not torture. There are plenty of pain medications on the market. Pot does not have to be one of them.
Scott Supak (@ssupak)
Dredd … when the Galtian Overlords are getting exactly what we all knew they’d pay for.
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“Galtian Overlords” … classic.
Karen,
They are purposefully aborting them now, which means the death of the fetus. Think of the life of the baby, not the money! Pro life and all that! Isn’t it worth saving that baby’s life? And there would have to be a time limit to even that procedure. I fully realize that anything that resembles my scenario will likely never come to pass. I am and always will be for giving a woman a choice, even if the time is limited.
What I forgot to add was that if hospitals did indeed allow women to arrive at 24 weeks and request a C-Section for a healthy pregnancy, that child would be connected to tubes, a respirator, require hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care, and be at high risk for serious health problems.
It is a miracle of modern medicine that we are able to save as many premies as we do now. A lot of families have had their babies rescued that way. But I cannot imagine purposely doing that to a baby, delivering him that early as an elective. And I think it would interfere with the Hippocratic Oath.
Lee:
A fetus is not a parasite until it’s viable. Biologically, a fetus depends on the woman’s body until birth, not just viability. If a fetus is past his due date, and the mother dies, the fetus dies, too, unless a skilled surgeon is standing by ready to operate immediately. So any argument that a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy as long as the fetus depends on her body for life literally means that late-term abortion should be an option up until birth.
Viability (typically 24 weeks LMP (last menstrual period) or 22 weeks from estimate of fertilization) is the limit for when intervention can possibly save a pre-term infant. Some consider viability the limit for late term abortion, possibly, because they believe the option for early delivery relieves the mother of having to carry the child while also giving the fetus a chance at life. Although I actually do not know if a woman can walk into a hospital and demand a C-section of a healthy pregnancy at 24 weeks because she no longer wants to carry the child, but wants to put him or her up for adoption instead.
Bob:
The DC student thread was in regards to one of Prof Turley’s posts about how DC spends close to $30,000/student and yet has unacceptable results. Previous media articles had estimated spending around $18,000/student.
He included a link to the Census Bureau, which I checked. It was for year 2009-2010. It explained its figures for student enrollment, such as grades. Prof Turley (and others) arrived at the $30,000 figure by including ALL expenditures, including capital outlay, which was not included by what the schools reported. That is the difference in the expenditure figure/student. What also muddied the water was some sources compared enrollment projections for 2015 with the 2009 figures.
I arrived at about the same figure that Prof Turley did, and asked him if my calculations were correct. I didn’t hear back (by this point the thread was quite long), so I do not know if our math agreed.
You can check all of my posts. I haven’t been following too long, maybe a month now. I have never flamed anyone and don’t plan to, although I often disagree with posters. Contrary to popular belief, I have never actually stated my position on abortion. I am aware of the procedure involved from reading testimony from physicians before Congress. Support for late term abortion is a minority position. And I did find Dr Gosnell repugnant.
Paul:
I, too, support medical marijuana. I think, especially if you are terminally ill, you should be able to have most anything you want, including investigational new drugs. (But I believe that the pharmaceutical companies need to be protected from having their FDA trial torpedoed from allowing their drugs to be used at an early phase for compassionate use. Sometimes this happens before they are ready, before dosing is sure, for example. An adverse event can torpedo the trial, which is why sometimes companies are hesitant to allow their drugs to be used before they’re ready.)
And, yes, they hand prescriptions out like candy. It basically legalized pot.
Supak:
Sorry, I scrolled further down and read your subsequent posts. I am here to discuss different ideas, not fight with strangers.
Bob, if denying pain medication is torture, then it must be a common practice. I used to ride with a young woman who was a recovering drug addict. She had a horse accident and broke her teeth, but her doctor told her he literally could not prescribe pain meds for her because of her addiction.
Supak:
As has been explained previously, the definition of a “late term abortion” is any abortion performed from 20 weeks to birth. Some have argued that the line is 16 weeks, but 20 weeks is accepted by the medical community.
The Washington Times received a copy of the briefing materials via FOIA, which, unfortunately, the lazy mainstream media failed to get themselves.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/19/team-obama-warned-on-vets-scandal-in-2008/
If you like, you can GOOGLE for a copy of the FOIA materials.
Sorry, but I agree with Prof Turley that right and wrong are blind to political party. Hence why I spelled out what was Bush’s fault and what was Obama’s.
Supak:
Hello. You posted:
“Obama is given a broken VA, watches funding get cut while almost 3 million veterans from George Bush’s wars line up for care for traumatic injuries that they used to die from before battlefield technology saved them.
And this is Obama’s fault, how, exactly? In my book, your president, GW “Food on your Family” Bush, set a mighty low bar, which Obama has cleared.”
Here are the facts. An IG under Bush studied the VA from 2005 to 2007. In his report, he indicated that the wait times reported by the VA was inaccurate, and noted many problems with the system. His report was given to Obama as part of his incoming briefing (as Carney admitted) in 2008. He was specifically told not to trust the VA’s reported wait times. At the time Obama took office, 9 of the IG’s recommendations still had not been implemented. I do not know how many months this represented after the report, but it was inexcusable.
The VA budget was never slashed (see link below with another link to the actual VA budget). In fact, it has increased every year for the past decade, for a total of a 1/3 increase over the past 5 years.
So Obama dissembled when he claimed he was “outraged” and had just heard about this on the news. It is well documented that he did not. And 2008 was not the first time it was brought up. There are documents from Congressmen and women for years complaining about this.
Under Obama, the problem only got worse and then he claimed he just found out about it.
I was mad that Bush did not implement all the IG’s recommendations by the time he left office, but that was a matter of months after the report. Obama has had 5 YEARS and it’s only gotten worse.
This is a management problem at the VA, not a funding problem. And do you know what would solve it?
1) Get rid of government unions that create unifireable, unaccountable public workers (do you know there is a bill at the Senate wading its way through that would allow the firing of VA managers? Seriously? Vets died because of criminal negligence and it takes, literally, an act of Congress to fire those responsible!) Stick with a meritocracy. Do a good job – get raises and promotions. Do a bad job, for instance cause someone’s DEATH, and get fired. Without wasting Congress’ time for staffing problems.
2) The VA is the only completely government run healthcare system, with no private practice. A study recently found that 8 salaried VA cardiac surgeons worked the caseload equivalent of a single private practice surgeon. Salaried government employees have zero incentive to work harder, see more patients. In fact, it creates bloated inefficiencies EVERY time. (Ever gone to the DMV?)
3) Everyone involved in what I believe was criminal negligence needs to go to jail. Period.
4) We need an IG to determine if this was coordinated. One case could be rouge employees. But 19 states involved spells coordination. Investigate and be transparent.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/may/21/katrina-vanden-heuvel/katrina-vanden-heuvel-says-congress-has-slashed-fu/
Annie,
I had always admired the Jesuits. I never would have thought they were readers of the Kim Kardashian Klarion, The Daily Mail.
And Paul, some chronic pain sufferers have days in which their pain is intractable. You really do play the semantic game.
Paul, people with the kind of neurological pain due to severely compressed nerve bundles and sciatic nerve, as I do, on occasion DO NOT get out of bed, much less walk. Luckily I have those days rarely now as I have some pretty powerful muscle relaxers, which do work. Plus I have had surgery which has helped, but not cured.
Bob Esq – I take the Federalist Papers for what they were intended to do, convince the states to ratify the Constitution. They are probably as close to ‘intent’ as we will get at this great distance, but I am somewhat cautious about them.