Tag Archives: politics

Constitutionally Questionable

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The subheadline lays out the problem:

Refusal of older officeholders to cede stage to younger faces is prompting fresh calls for a limit on how long they can serve

Statutory limits on how long Congressmen and -women can serve in Congress are constitutionally highly questionable. Here’s what Article I, Sections 2 (on Representatives) and 3 (on Senators) of our Constitution says about eligibility to serve in Congress:

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

And

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

Our Constitution places a floor on age, but it places no ceiling on age, nor does it place any limit on the length of service or number of terms an individual may serve. In many venues, it’s possible for lower jurisdictions to tighten standards of higher jurisdictions, but with our Constitution, such efforts have been routinely disallowed under the Supremacy Clause, which unequivocally states, along with Marbury v Madison, that our Constitution is our supreme law, and Congressional statutes are subordinate to it. It’s most likely that imposing an upper age limit would require an Amendment to our Constitution.

In any event, limiting by age for how long a congressman might serve is a decidedly suboptimal solution to this perceived problem. A much better solution is the term limit that was used in our erstwhile Articles of Confederation. That document’s Article V limited a Congressional delegate to three terms out of six, with no bar on serving further in subsequent six term runs.

The Articles were written for a unicameral Congress, but it’s easily adaptable to our present bicameral Congress. This also would require an Amendment to our Constitution, but it would be a better one that makes medical improvements to the abilities of aging citizens irrelevant.

A Thought on VMI

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The Progressive-Democrat-led government of Virginia is moving toward taking Virginia Military Institute fully and solely under State control, the better to inflict implement DEI characteristics in the Institute management and teachings. VMI has long been a source of quality military officers, in addition to the several Military Academies. That seems about to change.

Here’s Assistant SecDef for Public Affairs, Sean Parnell, on the potential:

For generations, the unique military environment at VMI has made the Institute a vital source of commissioned officers for the Armed Forces.
The stability of this proven leadership pipeline is a matter of direct national security interest and any action that could disrupt the ecosystem requires our full attention. DoW reserves the right to take extraordinary measures to protect the integrity of VMI and our commitment to the cadets and midshipmen currently training there remains steadfast.

The most effective “extraordinary measure” and one that would protect our officer corps from the pollution of DEI is this. Stop accepting VIM graduates into the officer corps if the State enacts its bill to bring the school fully and solely under State control. VMI graduates under the State’s planned control would no longer meet the training requirements for commissioning. Require all VMI graduates after the Class of 2025 who wish to become American military officers to undergo officer training from scratch through any of the other officer training programs, which include ROTC, OCS/OTS, any of our Military Academies.

Middle Man?

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Andy Kessler touted San Jose Mayor and California candidate for Governor, Matt Mahan, as presenting a sufficiently centered (Progressive-)Democrat who opposes Party’s supposedly (they promise!) one-time billionaire tax on those Evil One-Percenters’ wealth, whether liquid or not.

But, Mr Mahan goes on [says Kessler], “I don’t believe that high-net-worth individuals should be able to borrow against appreciated assets endlessly as a way to avoid paying capital gains.” The mayor of the country’s 12th-largest city thinks that rather than impose wealth taxes, California should press Congress to eliminate the step-up in basis at death, so that estates or heirs would pay a tax on the appreciation of a decedent’s assets. (California has no estate tax.) That wouldn’t put “our economy, our engine of innovation and prosperity, at risk.”

Three guesses where that would take our economy. Here’s a hint:

No one wealthy would own capital assets, whether personal or enterprise—they’d lease them. That would thoroughly alter the structure of our private economy, real, financial, business ownership, and it would do so in ways that we won’t know until it starts happening. That’s dangerous.

And that doesn’t get to the ability of parents to leave to their children what those parents spent a lifetime building—at least not in any substantial way. That’s even more dangerous.

This is an example of careless compromise: Mahan’s position doesn’t move things to the extreme left, but it does move things toward the left, rather than making an even split, much less moving things a little bit to the right. That’s a loss, not just for Conservatives, but for all of California’s citizens, wherever they are on the political spectrum.

Still a Bankrupt Message

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Rahm Emanuel, late of the Obama White House and the Chicago Mayor’s Mansion, wrote of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s golden opportunity in the Tuesday Wall Street Journal‘s editorial pages.

Many of his points are valid, and Republicans and Conservatives ignore them at their and our nation’s peril. But then he closed his piece with this:

The next 10 months will be about branding Republicans in Congress as Mr Trump’s enablers. Beyond that, we need to focus on speaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who considered or took the Faustian bargain Mr Trump offered them last year and are uncomfortable today with all the chaos they got in return for little economic benefit.

Here is the Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity, if they will find some backbone and make use of it. Enablers. Faustian bargain. Branding. This is Party’s sole and constantly delivered message: everything anti-Trump, and those not for Party are just ignorant or foolish or both. Party is against a man and against millions of average Americans.

Party has not a word, not a syllable, about the policies its members would work for and how those policies would strengthen our nation and its security and increase the prosperity of us citizens. [S]peaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who are so ignorant or foolish as to be suckered by the man on which Party focuses its enmity? And say what, exactly? Even as Emanual warns his Party against its common error of smug “I told you so,” here he is recommending Party do exactly that. Addressing the interests and sensibilities of those he says are disgruntled or uncomfortable says nothing about what Party would intend to do to satisfy those disgruntlements.

Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity consists of this, and it’s simple and straightforward. Don’t get sucked into a contest of personal opprobrium. Point out Party’s focus on the empty ad hominem of personal opprobrium, briefly; point out the lack of policies and policy goals on which Party campaigns, briefly. Then spend the large bulk of their messaging on their own policies and policy goals; how those enhance our nation and especially the lives of us citizens, individually and as groups; and be specific, fleshing out the glittering generalities with the specifics of carrying them out and the specific, measurable benefits to Americans that would ensue, including anticipated time frames for their coming to fruition and any pain points that might come from the transitions to those goals.

Being specific, of course, invites criticism and attack; staying with glittering generalities ducks them. This is where the backbones of Republicans and Conservatives come in, backbones that too many claiming to be Republican or Conservative have for too long lacked. Specifics are necessary to make the claims concrete and so to attract voters. This is where these wonders must, finally, step up.

Jumping the Gun

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The headline is…optimistic.

China Loses a Foothold in Panama

The headline heads off an op-ed centered on the Panamanian Supreme Court ruling that the contracts giving management of, and so control over, the Panama Canal ports to CK Hutchison’s Panama Ports Co unconstitutional, and so illegitimate.

That’s a good, solid step in the right direction, but follow through is required.

CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, which owns Panama Ports Co, which in turn is the owner of the port concessions at either end of the Panama Canal, has not withdrawn its subsidiary, nor has it withdrawn itself. Both are People’s Republic of China companies, and so both are obligated to the PRC government and to that government’s intelligence community.

The PRC does still control the canal, and it will until CK Hutchison and Panama Ports are both gone.