Separation of powers

The Politics and Pathology of The House Litigation Addiction

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

democratsJonathan Turley – With a crucial defeat in federal court this week, one would expect the House Democrats to be embarrassed at losing long protected precedent supporting legislative authority. Instead, as a federal judge in Washington was rejecting their challenge to the executive order by President Trump to build a wall along the southern border, House leaders have nonetheless moved ahead with an assortment of other inadvisable gambles.

The first step for compulsive gamblers is to admit they have a problem. Democrats have a serious and growing problem. The court defeat was particularly stinging to those of us who have tried repeatedly to persuade House Democrats to recognize that they are destroying themselves with reckless litigation.

Continue reading →

Federal Court To Hear Historic Challenge Over Separation Of Powers

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

houseJonathan Turley – At 10 a.m. [May 28 2015]  Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear argument on the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, et al., No. 1:14-cv-01967 (D.D.C.). The defendants are the Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury, and the secretaries of those two executive branch agencies. The Administration is seeking to prevent the Court from reaching the merits of this historic case, which was authorized by an affirmative vote of the entire House of Representatives on July 30, 2014, and which the House filed for the purpose of protecting our constitutional structure.

The House’s underlying complaint asserts two sets of claims, both of which concern the Affordable Care Act, and both of which allege that the defendants have violated the Constitution. These violations run to the very foundation of the separation of powers doctrine that underpins our entire system of government because they usurp Congress’s powers to appropriate public funds and to legislate. The first five counts concern defendants’ ongoing payment of billions of dollars to insurance companies. These payments were ordered by the Administration despite the fact that Congress, which has the exclusive constitutional power to appropriate public funds for expenditure, (i) rebuffed the Administration’s specific request for an annual appropriation of $4 billion in FY 2014, and (ii) has never at any other time appropriated any funds for such payments. (Such payments to insurance companies currently run at approximately $300 million per month, and are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to total $175 billion over the next ten fiscal years.) Continue reading →

Jonathan Turley ~ The Constitutional Tipping Point

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

JonathanTurley  March 10 2014

jonathanTurleyBelow is my column in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. I recently testified on this issue in three separate hearings before Congress (here and here and here). Last week, President Obama proceeded to add yet another suspension order to the health care law. It is part of a broader array of such unilateral actions that raise disturbing constitutional issues under the Separation of Powers. This goes beyond the usual discretion in “filing in the blanks” or ambiguities of laws. These were not delegated or unanswered questions. These were largely core issues — dates and coverage issues — that were the subject of intense congressional debate. Indeed, in a number of cases, President Obama asked for reforms and was denied the changes by Congress — only to order the very same reforms by executive action. That is why this is not an administrative law but a constitutional law issue in my opinion.

Recently, a bizarre scene unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives that would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced that he had decided to go it alone in areas where Congress refused to act to his satisfaction. In a system of shared powers, one would expect an outcry or at least stony silence when a president promised to circumvent the legislative branch. Instead, many senators and representatives erupted in rapturous applause; they seemed delighted at the notion of a president assuming unprecedented and unchecked powers at their expense.

Last week, Obama underlined what this means for our system: The administration unilaterally increased the transition time for individuals to obtain the level of insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act. There is no statutory authority for the change — simply the raw assertion of executive power.

Continue reading →

America No Longer Has A Functioning Judicial System

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

WashingtonsBlog July 22 2013

The Separation of Powers Which Define Our Democracy Have Been Destroyed

Anglo-Saxon law

The Department of Justice told a federal court this week that the NSA’s spying “cannot be challenged in a court of law”.

(This is especially dramatic given that numerous federal judges and legal scholars – including a former FISA judge – say that the FISA spying “court” is nothing but a kangaroo court.)

Also this week, the Department of Justice told a federal court that the courts cannot review the legality of the government’s assassination by drone of Americans abroad:

“‘Are you saying that a US citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?’ [the judge]  asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general. ‘How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?’

Continue reading →