Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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When Donald Trump assumes office on January 20, as the 47th President of the United States, he will mark the solemn occasion with an inaugural address which, while not required by the Constitution, represents a rich tradition initiated by George Washington, one that affords the president a platform to chart a new direction for the nation and announce his plans, policies and programs. President Trump will stand at the podium in a time of deep division and great challenge, somewhat akin to the circumstances that confronted Thomas Jefferson and...
There is no system in place in America to dial up the president that the nation most needs at a given juncture. It is true that most delegates at the Constitutional Convention believed that George Washington would be our first president, assuming the sovereign people ratified the proposed Constitution and elected the country’s most famous citizen, the hero of the Revolutionary War, adjudged by everyone, everywhere to be our greatest leader. Washington didn’t disappoint his countrymen, unless you factor in the widespread disappointment registere...
The Framers: integrity and impeachment will temper use of pardon power English history was constantly before the eyes of delegates to the Constitutional Convention as they stressed about the exercise of the presidential pardon power. Kings had abused the pardoning authority for corrupt ends. They sold pardons to those who could afford them and, on occasion, sought to screen from parliamentary inquiry those whom they had instigated to violate the law. The historical practice, it seemed to the Framers, constituted a parade of horribles. What,...
From Charles Dickens: advice for American fulfillment and reconciliation In this season of peace and joy and celebration, accentuated in many homes by the presence of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” whether on television or in print, comes useful advice for America’s progress in overcoming our deep political division and polarization, and fulfilling our yearning for a measure of civility and reconciliation, from my favorite English novelist’s lesser known book, “The Life and Times of Martin Chuzzlewit,” (1843), which Dickens once...
Biden and Trump have brought the presidential pardon power center stage Readers’ questions about the origins and scope of the presidential pardon power, triggered by President Joe Biden’s grant of a pardon to his son, Hunter, and the possibility he would issue blanket clemency – a preconviction pardon – to those whom President-elect Donald Trump has said should “go to jail,” coupled with Trump’s declaration that he will “most likely” pardon January 6, 2021 defendants, invite exploration of the most delicate, yet imperial, of the president’s con...
Constitutional character as destiny If it is true, as the Athenian philosopher Heraclitus said, that “character is destiny,” then it may be said that a nation’s constitution is its destiny. Does a nation’s constitution exalt fundamental principles – due process, equal protection and the rule of law, and freedom of speech, press and religion? Equally revealing of a nation’s character, are its laws, policies and programs. They reveal its values, as Aristotle said, and open a window onto its soul. How does a country treat the poor, the hungry,...
“Does the U.S. President have the authority to withdraw from NATO?” President-elect Donald Trump is not a fan of NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – which has been the backbone of the US-European security alliance since its creation in 1949. He has mused publicly about withdrawing the United States from the treaty. Along the campaign trail, Trump has reminded audiences of his threat to refuse military support for a NATO ally that he believes doesn’t pay enough to support the alliance, despite the promise in Article V of the treat...
Trump’s demand for recess appointments brings the Constitution and the Senate’s role into sharp focus The Recess Appointment power, seldom at the forefront of national discussion, resurfaced last week as a headline topic when President-elect Donald Trump declared that those Republicans seeking the title of Senate Majority Leader “must” agree that his nominations for the U.S. Cabinet should be installed as recess appointments, a move that would bypass approval by the U.S. Senate. The unprecedented command from a president-in-waiting to an inde...
“Liberty, justice and civilization depend on the rule of law” Presidential elections have consequences, as they say, and national airwaves are filled with voices engaging in speculation and prediction about the legislation, policies and actions that President-Elect Donald Trump will promote in his second term. Whatever Trump chooses to do, this much should be said about his presidency, as it should be said about any presidency. The nation’s chief executive has, by virtue of his Oath of Office, an obligation to preserve, protect and defend the C...
James Madison, writing in August of 1823 from his home in Montpelier, Va. – to which he repaired in what turned out be a futile effort to retire from public life – continued to assess the defects of the Constitution, including the way America elects its president. Madison, who preferred direct election of the president, addressed what he regarded as a foundational weakness in our electoral system. In the case of a tie in the Electoral College, the Twelfth Amendment requires the U.S. House of Representatives to choose the next president. Mad...
The presidential election of 1788, the first under the newly minted Constitution, was unusual and even unique in ways that 21st century Americans can scarcely imagine. For one, there was no campaigning. In the 18th century, it was an unwritten rule that any display of ambition would be unseemly. For another, George Washington, widely viewed as Father of His Country, was for all practical purposes anointed by his fellow citizens. As it happened, he was elected unanimously by the Electoral College, a feat that he would achieve, again, in the...
Our ongoing review of the origins and rationales that undergird the Electoral College reveals a central point that cannot be ignored. The disturbing vice of the Electoral College, as we have seen, is that it undermines our political system by providing presidential candidates with an incentive to visit competitive states, particularly large competitive states, at the expense of small states. In a system providing for the direct election of the president, which would more effectively represent...
One of the chief justifications for the Electoral College, advanced by its advocates, is that small, lightly populated states require protection for interests that would be overwhelmed by large states under a system based on the direct election of the president. Readers may be surprised to learn that in the Constitutional Convention, James Madison told fellow delegates that small states don’t need protection from large states. His own state, Virginia, like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, he said, were divided by various interests, including e...
Civic engagement, what the nation’s founders hoped would be a distinguishing feature of the young and energetic republic, can be manifested in various ways including voting, participation in political parties and campaigns, displaying lawn signs, running for office and writing letters to the editor. Newspaper readers who comment on public affairs and pose questions to columnists are part of a great tradition in the intellectual and public life of America. Recent columns on the Electoral College have generated much-appreciated questions about it...
Two previous columns on the origins of the Electoral College have sparked questions from discerning readers across the state who wonder why the United States continues to utilize this peculiar method of electing the president when the rationales and justifications for its creation have long since vanished. The Framers’ reasons for rejecting direct election of the president – lack of communication, transportation and adequate knowledge of the qualifications and credentials of candidates – are no longer relevant. As many have observed, we somet...
The Framers of the Constitution seriously considered adoption of a direct popular vote for the election of the president until objections exposed the likelihood that lack of communication, transportation and adequate knowledge of candidates would hobble the ability of Americans to make a reasoned and informed choice. Some feared that voters would not be familiar with national leaders and would reflexively support candidates from their own states. Voter parochialism would undermine the prospects for national union. Although James Madison was an...
With less than 50 days remaining in the 2024 presidential election, citizens are turning their attention to the “Electoral College Map,” fully aware that the next president will be the candidate who captures 270 electoral votes, rather than the winner of the popular vote, although most Americans continue to prefer a direct, nationwide election, one they view as more consistent with democratic principles, and wonder why the Framers of the Constitution chose such a peculiar method for electing the nation’s highest official. What concerns and c...
Advocates of term limits for Supreme Court justices, mindful of the overgrown, transformative power of the Court and the ethical lapses of some of its members, have recommended staggered, 18-year terms and regularized presidential appointments for justices as a means of reducing the heated and divisive partisanship that has raised the confirmation process to a fever pitch and undercut public confidence in the judiciary, what Alexander Hamilton called, “the least dangerous branch.” Integral to these proposals is the guarantee that each pre...
Plummeting public approval of the U.S. Supreme Court, now at record lows, reflects in part deep-seated concerns about recent rulings that have overturned precedents that protected fundamental rights, as well as an unprecedented ruling – the creation of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution – without foundation in our constitutional architecture. It is also true that the diminished confidence of the citizenry in the nation’s highest bench is a function of the ethical lapses of some current justices. These factors, among others, have ac...
The doctrine of checks and balances, central to the success of American Constitutionalism, is designed to curb abuse of power and promote governmental accountability. But the Constitution is not a machine that will run without good men and women at the helm. When those in positions of authority and responsibility are reluctant to turn the wheels of checks and balances to constrain the judiciary, for example, there is little to deter misbehavior. Justice James Iredell, a member of the first Supreme Court and one of the most penetrating thinkers...
Is the threat of impeachment sufficient to deter Supreme Court justices from abusing power or engaging in other acts of misbehavior that would warrant their removal from the nation’s High Bench? The Framers of the Constitution thought so, as Alexander Hamilton explained, but many Americans across our nation doubt the premise. Consequently, they have become advocates for Supreme Court reform. Some lobby for an enforceable ethics code, some seek term limits for the justices, and some argue for an expansion of the size of the Court, primarily t...
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates debated the merits and virtues of vesting in federal courts the awesome power of judicial review – the authority to strike down laws of Congress that they find to be unconstitutional. In the end, the Framers agreed to grant the reviewing power to the courts, but not without some careful soul-searching, for it was at that juncture in world history unique in the realms of law and political science. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78 that the courts were designed to keep the legislatur...
President Joe Biden’s proposed constitutional amendment – “The No One is Above the Law Amendment” – seeks to restore the cornerstone principle of American Constitutionalism by effectively overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Trump v. United States, which held that the president possesses absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts involving the exercise of “core powers.” The decision, criticized by scholars and judges of various political stripes, including the conservative heavyweight and revered retired Fourth...
Biden’s calls for constitutional restraints on the presidency and Supreme Court steeped in irony President Joe Biden’s sweeping proposals to reform the U.S. Supreme Court and the American presidency are steeped in irony. It is not lost on the citizenry that the Court’s own acts have inspired Biden’s proposals to rein in presidential power and curb the excesses of the nation’s High Bench. The Court’s creation in Trump v. United States of absolute executive immunity from criminal prosecution for a president’s official acts stunned the nation, b...
The possibilities of the Office of the Presidency, the Framers of the Constitution knew, would depend in large measure on the character of its occupant. The Presidency was constrained by the terms of the Constitution and the doctrine of checks and balances, designed to temper the vaulting ambition of future chief executives who might imitate those in European countries that aggrandized power for their own interests. But the presidency was also empowered to perform the responsibilities of the Office, which possessed the bandwidth to inspire the...
