Latest news with #Framers
The Hill
30-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Kavanaugh objects as Supreme Court turns away California pig welfare law challenge
The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a second bite at the apple to review California's law requiring pork sold in the state to come from pigs raised with sufficient living space. Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated he would've taken up the case, but neither he nor the majority explained their reasoning, as is typical. Two years ago, the court upheld the law in response to a challenge from national pork and farmers groups. But those groups conceded certain legal arguments, and the Iowa Pork Producers Association hoped to pick up the mantle. Passed by California voters in 2018, Proposition 12 prohibits pork sold in the state if the breeding pig had less than 24 square feet of usable floor space. Industry groups say the law effectively requires farmers nationwide to comply given California's size, and they've also criticized the standard as arbitrary. The legal challenge concerns a doctrine rooted in the Constitution's command that Congress holds the power to regulate interstate commerce. Known as the dormant Commerce Clause, the doctrine restricts states from impeding that power by discriminating purposefully against out-of-state economic interests. In the previous case, however, the challengers didn't argue that Proposition 12 discriminated against other states. They explicitly conceded the argument before the court, instead advancing more aggressive theories that the justices rejected in a fractured decision. The new case provided the court a second bite at the apple, but they declined it. The Iowa-based group advanced a discrimination claim that revolves around an earlier animal welfare measure that applies to California farmers only. That measure gave the in-state farmers six years to comply, but Proposition 12 gave out-of-state farmers less than six weeks. 'If issues of 'morality' can drive the regulation of out-of-state industry (as was supposedly the case with Proposition 12), why couldn't future regulation be based on minimum wage policies of sister States, or employees' immigration status, or any other hot-button social issue of the day? The Framers prohibited precisely this type of discriminatory and overly onerous out-of-state regulation,' the pork association wrote in its petition. The group is represented by law firms Husch Blackwell and Brick Gentry. California urged the court to turn away the challenge, saying the earlier groups conceded the argument because 'it lacks any merit.' 'Proposition 12 enacts a neutral sales restriction that treats in-state and outof-state farmers the same,' the state wrote in court filings.
The Hill
21-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
If he wages war unilaterally, Trump will only be the latest of many presidents to do so
Twenty-four years ago this week, I represented a group of bipartisan members of Congress in challenging the Obama administration's decision to attack Libya without a declaration of war. It is a curious anniversary of the litigation, because many of the politicians and pundits who supported (or remained silent on) the action of President Barack Obama are now appalled that President Trump is considering an attack on the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, which is buried deep in a mountain. Later, some Democratic members would move to expand presidential powers to launch attacks without approval. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the drafter of the current legislation to limit Trump's authority, drafted legislation in 2018 to put the authorization for use of military force on virtual autopilot. That was during the first Trump administration, and I testified against that legislation as a virtual authorization for 'endless war.' In 2011, Obama approved a massive military campaign that not only attacked Libya's capital city but also armored columns of the Libyan military. The clear intent was regime change supported by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also rejected the need to consult with Congress, let alone secure approval before launching a massive attack on another nation. Today, Trump is contemplating the use of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator or 'bunker buster' bomb, to destroy the facility. It may be the only weapon that can reach the underground enhancement areas, and it can only be delivered by American B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. It takes courage to oppose such actions by a president of your own party or against an unpopular foe. Notably, among my clients 24 years ago was Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the father of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who also believes that a president should secure approval of Congress before any such attack occurs. The other group that would demand such approval was the Framers themselves. They saw foreign entanglements and military interventions as the markings of despots and tyrants. At the Constitutional Convention, delegate Pierce Butler insisted that a president should not be able to 'make war but when the nation will support it.' Nevertheless, he did not even receive a second to his motion because the Framers demanded real checks on this power. They imposed that limit by only allowing the nation to go to war with the express declaration of Congress. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 states that the 'sole' authority to declare war rests with Congress. In 1793, George Washington supported the denial of this power to a president as a clear and binding promise that 'no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.' The Framers thought that they had solved the problem. In the Pennsylvania ratification convention, James Wilson explained the need for congressional approval as a guarantee that no one will 'hurry us into war [since] it is calculated to guard against it.' The purpose of such approval is not just to limit foreign wars but to secure the support of the people before such wars are commenced. After all, presidents get the glory of wars, but citizens pay the cost in lives and treasure. Politicians, however, quickly became leery of taking such ownership over wars. Congress became increasingly passive in the face of popular military engagements, using ambiguous 'authorizations' to preserve the ability to later insist that they were never really in support of wars. While some of us opposed the Iraq War, politicians like then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) were all-in on the invasion. Yet, when he ran for president, Biden insisted that he had opposed the long, drawn-out war. Then there was Sen. John Kerry. During the Democratic primary in 2004, Kerry portrayed himself as against the Iraq War, even though he had also voted for it. Later, when confronted by George Bush in the general election over his vote against spending $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, he offered his notorious response that 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.' Despite the clear text of the Constitution, courts have repeatedly allowed this circumvention of Article I. Congress has only declared 11 wars while allowing more than 125 military operations, including Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan. Congress has not declared war in the 80 years since World War II. In my case, the Obama administration would not even refer to an attack on another nation as a 'war.' It insisted that it was a 'time-limited, scope-limited military action,' or a 'kinetic action.' The court allowed the war to proceed. Both Congress and the courts have effectively amended the Constitution to remove the requirement of war declarations. As a result, the precedent favors Trump in arguing for his right to commit troops unilaterally. Whereas Kaine and others insist that there has been no attack by Iran on the U.S., Trump can cite the fact that Iran has killed or wounded thousands of Americans directly or through surrogates, including attacks on U.S. shipping through its Houthi proxy forces in Yemen. More importantly, he can cite decades of judicial and congressional acquiescence. For my part, I think the Framers were right then and they are right now. We have shown just how right they were with decades of undeclared wars and so little accountability. The fact that these actions are presumptively unconstitutional is an inconvenient fact buried in decades of war hype and hypocrisy. That is why Trump is unlikely to go to Congress and, as a matter of precedent, he does not have to. He will assume the same power his predecessors enjoyed, including recent Democratic presidents. With that history and politics on his side, Trump could turn Fordow into the most expensive hole in history. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of 'The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.'
Wall Street Journal
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Protests, the Courts and the National Guard
President Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles has opened the latest chapter in the long-running debate over the constitutional limits to executive power. Since George Washington's administration, politicians and courts have wrestled with the same problem the Framers faced: creating a presidential office with enough power to administer the executive branch, enforce the law and lead the nation in war and peril—without giving the president so much power as to endanger the constitutional order and the people's liberties.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion - The Constitution strikes back against Trump
Early in President Trump's first term, humorist Andy Borowitz wrote a New Yorker piece that imagined Trump's frustration with court rulings blocking his executive orders on constitutional grounds. 'There's something going on,' Trump says about how 'very unfairly' the Framers of the Constitution have treated him. 'I don't have their names yet but that's something I'm looking into. These jokers are not going to get away with this.' Those 'jokers' who wrote the Constitution are really getting under Trump's skin in his second term. By one count, 180 judicial rulings have partly or wholly blocked Trump's executive orders and initiatives — many on constitutional grounds — which led to his attacks on 'radical left' judges and calls for their impeachment. Trump cannot grasp that his fundamental problem is with the Constitution, not the judges. His executive orders are too much for some of his own judicial appointees, one of whom, Judge Timothy Reif joined — 'Et tu, Brute?' — in the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Court of International Trade that Trump lacked constitutional authority for his global tariffs. The judicial setbacks have apparently pushed Trump into the 'eat your young' phase of his second term. After the tariff ruling, Trump blamed the conservative Federalist Society, attacking Leonard Leo, its long-time leader, as a 'sleazebag' for giving him 'bad advice' in his first term on judicial nominations. Talk about petulance — the Federalist Society helped Trump put three justices on the Supreme Court who provided the key votes for two of the conservative movement's greatest victories: the end of affirmative action and the overruling of Roe v. Wade. The Framers designed the Constitution as a bulwark against monarchy, yet within hours of swearing an oath to support and defend the Constitution, Trump began governing as a monarch. He issued more executive orders in his first 100 days than any president in American history. Trump's executive orders were not written on parchment and sealed with crimson wax, but in their scope and cruelty they have the feel of royal decrees. His orders launched a worldwide tariff war, punished individuals and organizations for exercising their right of free speech and, by halting foreign food aid and HIV-prevention programs, according to one calculation, may have already caused the deaths of thousands of children in the developing world. As if to underscore his monarchical impulses, Trump, after issuing an order to cancel congestion pricing in New York City, proclaimed on Truth Social, 'LONG LIVE THE KING!' Thanks to the Framers, presidential executive orders are subject to judicial review because our system of checks and balances was designed so that each branch of government restrains the other two. Trump has so neutered the GOP Congress that James Madison's famous phrase in Federalist No. 51 describing checks and balances — 'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition' — needs to be displayed in 10-foot letters in both chambers to remind Republicans why they are there. But the judicial branch, including Trump's own appointees, is still loyal to the Constitution, and this infuriates Trump. In fact, Trump has won significant rulings from what he calls a 'judicial tyranny.' At least preliminarily, federal courts have upheld his right to fire the heads of independent agencies with apparently limited exceptions, stripped (for now) hundreds of thousands of immigrants of temporary legal protections and paused the Court of International Trade's tariff ruling. But since Trump claims the right to 'run the country and the world,' he finds any judicial setback intolerable. Trump's rage against judicial rulings putting the Constitution, and not him, first is the best evidence that the system designed by the Framers endures — at least so far. Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of 'Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
03-06-2025
- General
- The Hill
The Constitution strikes back against Trump
Early in President Trump's first term, humorist Andy Borowitz wrote a New Yorker piece that imagined Trump's frustration with court rulings blocking his executive orders on constitutional grounds. 'There's something going on,' Trump says about how 'very unfairly' the Framers of the Constitution have treated him. 'I don't have their names yet but that's something I'm looking into. These jokers are not going to get away with this.' Those 'jokers' who wrote the Constitution are really getting under Trump's skin in his second term. By one count, 180 judicial rulings have partly or wholly blocked Trump's executive orders and initiatives — many on constitutional grounds — which led to his attacks on 'radical left' judges and calls for their impeachment. Trump cannot grasp that his fundamental problem is with the Constitution, not the judges. His executive orders are too much for some of his own judicial appointees, one of whom, Judge Timothy Reif joined — 'Et tu, Brute?' — in the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Court of International Trade that Trump lacked constitutional authority for his global tariffs. The judicial setbacks have apparently pushed Trump into the 'eat your young' phase of his second term. After the tariff ruling, Trump blamed the conservative Federalist Society, attacking Leonard Leo, its long-time leader, as a 'sleazebag' for giving him 'bad advice' in his first term on judicial nominations. Talk about petulance — the Federalist Society helped Trump put three justices on the Supreme Court who provided the key votes for two of the conservative movement's greatest victories: the end of affirmative action and the overruling of Roe v. Wade. The Framers designed the Constitution as a bulwark against monarchy, yet within hours of swearing an oath to support and defend the Constitution, Trump began governing as a monarch. He issued more executive orders in his first 100 days than any president in American history. Trump's executive orders were not written on parchment and sealed with crimson wax, but in their scope and cruelty they have the feel of royal decrees. His orders launched a worldwide tariff war, punished individuals and organizations for exercising their right of free speech and, by halting foreign food aid and HIV-prevention programs, according to one calculation, may have already caused the deaths of thousands of children in the developing world. As if to underscore his monarchical impulses, Trump, after issuing an order to cancel congestion pricing in New York City, proclaimed on Truth Social, 'LONG LIVE THE KING!' Thanks to the Framers, presidential executive orders are subject to judicial review because our system of checks and balances was designed so that each branch of government restrains the other two. Trump has so neutered the GOP Congress that James Madison's famous phrase in Federalist No. 51 describing checks and balances — 'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition' — needs to be displayed in 10-foot letters in both chambers to remind Republicans why they are there. But the judicial branch, including Trump's own appointees, is still loyal to the Constitution, and this infuriates Trump. In fact, Trump has won significant rulings from what he calls a 'judicial tyranny.' At least preliminarily, federal courts have upheld his right to fire the heads of independent agencies with apparently limited exceptions, stripped (for now) hundreds of thousands of immigrants of temporary legal protections and paused the Court of International Trade's tariff ruling. But since Trump claims the right to 'run the country and the world,' he finds any judicial setback intolerable. Trump's rage against judicial rulings putting the Constitution, and not him, first is the best evidence that the system designed by the Framers endures — at least so far. Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of 'Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.'
