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| A captive, not captivated, audience |
They seem to think that "bi-Cameral" is a sexual term ("two bi's do it in front of a camera"), thus, they settled on the attorney who handled the polygamy case in Utah (Brown v. Buhman, Sister Wives).
I say that because the Senate is not involved in the lawsuit (House v HEW & Treasury, PDF) as it should be if bicameral legislative agreement was the reality on this issue.
So, the bottom line is that the lawsuit is not a bi-cameral lawsuit, it is unilateral.
Nor is it a lawsuit against President Obama as touted in the McTell News ("House sues Obama"); rather, it is a lawsuit against Secretary Burwell and Secretary Lew as defendants (see link to complaint above, PDF).
It is a unilateral case rather than a bicameral case involving both houses, because the Senate wanted nothing to do with it, and thus the Senate is not a party to the lawsuit.
In that light, some of the Republican House's allegations seem to be a bit hypocritical (no surprise there):
This legislative power may be exercised only through the “single, finely wrought, and exhaustively considered process,” Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417, 439-40 (1998), that is familiar to us all, namely, the passage of identical bills by the House of Representatives and the Senate (bicameralism), followed by delivery to the President for his signature or veto (presentment). U.S. Const. art. I, § 7, cl. 2 (“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States . . . .”). Beyond the President’s role in the presentment process, the Constitution does not permit the Executive Branch to enact laws, or to amend or repeal duly enacted laws, including by adopting rules or taking other unilateral actions that have such an effect.(ibid, House Complaint, p. 2, emphasis added). The Republican House leaders forgot that their unilateral action, without the Senate, is not bicameralism, it is unilateralism.
In general, it takes tricameralism to make law (the president must agree to and sign legislation passed by both the Senate and the House before it becomes law).
It only takes bicameralism to pass legislation then put it on the President's desk (legislation is not law just because the House and/or the Senate pass it).
This Republican House-only case is headed for discussion in another chapter of the Agnotology textbooks, especially since the Republican House has ongoing agnotological troubles (evidently they think that "Republican House + a Court = bicameral legislation").
Troubles conceiving a mere three numerals (they also have trouble with "uni-", "bi-", and "tri-").
The previous post in this series is here.
Proof that the public is smarter than the House: [Justice Souter indicates that only two-thirds of Americans do not know that there are three branches in their own government] (@1:27):
Hey, Dredd - good call. I imagine you probably saw my recent post at NBL regarding the gutting of the EPA that will ensue once they control both houses come January. They're so anti-science that they're willing to sacrifice their own children, grandchildren and loved ones for their idiotic ideology. I don't know what it will take to convince them that they're on the wrong road, but at this point it looks as if it's already far too late.
ReplyDeleteTom
Tom,
DeleteI think this is the comment on NBL that you are talking about (This is what we have to look forward to come January 2015).
Yeah, politics is just "swell" (in the clenched-teeth Eastwood pronunciation) for solving the problems of humanity.
ReplyDeleteTom