The senator was outraged. Congress had challenged the foreign policy of the president, ignoring that he is “the sole person to whom our Constitution gives the responsibility for conducting foreign relations.”
It was “an unconstitutional encroachment on the presidential prerogatives and power,” he fumed.
The words may sound like they come from a Capitol Hill Democrat, reacting to the Senate Republican letter to Iran’s leaders about their nuclear talks with President Obama. On Monday, Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement that those lawmakers were attempting to “undercut our President and circumvent our constitutional system.”
In fact, the angry speaker was Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah — reacting in 1987 to Congress’s passage of the Boland Amendment, cutting off U.S. aid to Nicaragua’s Contra rebels against the vehement wishes of President Ronald Reagan...
EYE ON A CRAZY PLANET
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Three points;
ReplyDeleteI. The Boland Amendment passed in 1982, not '87. Also, cutting off funding is clerly within the designated powers of the Article I power of Congress.
II. This is unique in that this isn't individual Democrats, such as Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Jim Wright or Jim McDermott causing mischief, it is pretty nearly the entire Republican caucus. That's entirely different from any other example that Republicans and Fox News are throwing out.
III. The conduct of U.S diplomacy is a clearly designated Article II presidential power. One of the reasons I know that is that a lifetime of Republican politicians have been telling me so. And as the originators and staunchest defenders of the Unitary Executive Theory (at least when they're in power), the GOP has a responsibility to uphold it.