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Technically, you and this issue, can lick America's balls.
Read that cons utional clause carefully. Technically, the fact the raise was implemented disqualifies her. Even if the raise is rescinded, because it did happened, she is disqualified.
Technicalities my friend. Not my fault past instances weren’t challenged. A court challenge should surely disqualify her.
Technically, you and this issue, can lick America's balls.
I'm sure the founders never envisioned a world in which professional politicians would have so many avenues to wealth outside of the salary that they are paid for their positions, or term limits would have been in the cons ution to begin with.
Is this another one of your hair-brained conspiracy theories? You just hate women.
So you are putting your vast legal experience against that of Robert Bork.Technicalities my friend. Not my fault past instances weren’t challenged. A court challenge should surely disqualify her.
Take it up with him.
Let me know how it goes.
why are republicans always the first to bring partisan bull up?
Its like everytime they find something wrong they bring party lines up. Its always like this
i laugh as i read this and glance at your sig.
the 2nd amendment ? You are as stupid as they come. In your puny mind you deem the "2nd half" of the sentence, to mean gun rights are only for militia and not the common man ?
I'd love to see Hillary get booted out of the SoS job. I am not fond of her at all. But perhaps she'll do a good job.
all she has to do is not accept the raise, but except the pay as it was...........simple fix.
That's not how I read it.
The raise was already implemented, while she is a senator. The cons ution uses the phrase "or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased." Well, they have been increased! It doesn't matter if she doesn't accept the raise. Nothing but time travel to prevent the raise can remove the legal fact that they have been increased!
What a sweet technicality...
Congress has been aware of this for years, yet never sought to make an amendment. Too bad.
Hilary shouldn't be the secretary of state, just for the sake of his pansy husband. As long as our president-elect is a black man, why not have a black secretary of State? The present Secretary of State is Rice who has proven that the black also can do a great work in controlling the political affairs. I still want a black woman to be the secretary of state, but Rice is gonna retire from White House before long. Whichelse black woman do you think deserves to be the secretary of state? I nominate Halle Berry.
We may want to look antisexist and antiracist, but the rest of the world sill has many who are. Like it or not, in dealing with the Middle-East in the next few years, we are better off with a strong male in the SoS office. Maybe even one of Muslim faith!
I kind of agree with you. But it's still a meaningless gripe.
(1) This has happened before. There is precedent for the Saxbe fix. That is what will happen here.
(2) Obama is en led, as a general matter, to hire people he thinks are best suited to help his administration. It doesn't make sense to get in the way of that.
(3) Even if the appointment of Hillary is uncons utional, there is still the matter of standing to consider. Hillary would basically have to do something in her capacity as Secretary of State to injure someone else, and that person would have to sue and make an issue out of the cons utionality of the appointment. That seems unlikely.
You can read it like an idiot all you want. It won't change anything.
He isn't reading it like an idiot. A lot of legal scholars agree with him, actually. You may disagree with his interpretation, but you shouldn't call him an idiot.
Yes, but did anyone take the issue to the courts?
We live in a complaint driven society. If it is challenged, I solidly believe the courts will rule against her.
The precident is set if the courts decide it. Then, future courts can still reverse the decision.
this should settle the debate, but somehow i think someone will split hairs. enjoy. i find it very commendable what Ronald Reagan did.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, but will the founding fathers veto this popular addition to Barack Obama's "team of rivals"?
Yes, according to one conservative interpretation of the Cons ution.
Article 1, Section 6 of the Cons ution says the following: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."
Translation: A lawmaker cannot fill a position if the salary for that position has been raised during that lawmaker's term in office.
In January, President Bush signed an executive order increasing the salary for the secretary of state and other Cabinet positions by $4,700. Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate since January 2001.
Case closed, says the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch.
"There's no getting around the Cons ution's ineligibility clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
"No public official who has taken the oath to support and defend the Cons ution should support this appointment."
Not so fast, most legal scholars say.
In the past, lawmakers have found a way around the clause, with Congress changing the salary of the office in question back to what it originally was.
It happened when Ohio Sen. William Saxbe was named President Nixon's attorney general in 1974 and again when Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen became President Clinton's Treasury secretary in 1993.
"There are many ways around this problem," CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted. "One is for Congress to vote a lower salary. Another way is for Hillary Clinton simply to accept a lower salary. Another way is simply to ignore the problem on the idea that no one has the right, has the standing, to sue to stop her from being secretary of state.
"This is not going to be an impediment to her being secretary of state," Toobin argued.
One Clinton aide said that both Clinton and Obama were aware of the issue when he announced her as his choice for secretary of state. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office said congressional Democrats are moving forward with a measure similar to what has been done before.
Judicial Watch takes issue with the precedent.
"We think it's inadequate," Fitton said. "You can't amend the Cons ution through legislation like that. ... The Cons ution doesn't have any caveats. It's plain as day."
Fitton pointed to what President Reagan did when facing a similar situation.
"Ronald Reagan took a look at this clause and decided against appointing Orrin Hatch, who was a senator and still is, to the Supreme Court," he noted.
Whatever the activists, scholars or pundits say, the public has apparently made up its mind.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted December 1-2 indicated that 71 percent of Americans approve of Obama's nomination of Clinton as his secretary of state. Democrats overwhelmingly approve of the choice, with two-thirds of independents agreeing and Republicans split evenly on the pick.
CNN's Alan Silverleib contributed to this report
Let me know who has the standing to file a suit.
What's standing?
Ah, irony at its finest.
Seriously, who wants to limit their own party's cabinet nominee list just because of an unhealthy obsession with Hillary Clinton?
Who could have standing in this case?
I've been struggling with the standing issue. I suppose if the State Department ed someone over--I don't know how--then that person could sue and attack the cons utionality of Hillary Clinton's appointment. I don't know. Lotta strands in old duder's head.
That's why the Obama birth certificate cases never got above the level of the Yoniwhottt soapbox.
i bet you would be all over this issue if mccain had won and he wanted to appoint a senator
the ethical way to fix this would be just to recind the pay hike and there is precedent for that. and guess which party started that precedent?
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...ible_for_post/
Senate plans to slash salary so Clinton is eligible for post
December 5, 2008
The fix is apparently in - to help Hillary Clinton skirt a nettlesome cons utional provision and clear her path to become secretary of state.
The clause says that no member of Congress can be named to any office whose pay was raised during his or her term. In January, while Clinton was the junior US senator from New York, the salary for secretary of state was raised from $186,600 to $191,300.
The Senate is working on a bill to rescind the raise - a strategy also used in 1973 so that Senator William Saxbe, an Ohio Republican, could become attorney general. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, through a spokesman, said this week that she would go along.
Some bloggers and anti-Clinton groups have been pressing the case that the cons utional clause makes her ineligible for the post.
"And aside from the cons utional issue, Hillary Clinton's long track record of corruption makes her a terrible choice to serve as the nation's top diplomat," Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement this week.
The Wall Street Journal weighed in on the issue with an editorial yesterday that was somewhat more forgiving.
"To our knowledge, Senator Clinton played no role in the salary raise, and she clearly had grander ambitions than Secretary of State when the law was signed. But while the issue will strike some as trivial, it is no small matter to ignore the Cons ution's direct words. Giving Mrs. Clinton a pay cut is a minimum gesture of deference required to the do ent that Mr. Obama will soon swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend," it said.
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