We are all familiar with the recent escalation of conflict with Moammar Gadhafi's oppressive regime in Libya. President Obama authorized the use of military force against Libya, and began calling in airstrikes on the Libyan coast in an operation codenamed "Odyssey Dawn." The continuing rise of conflict in Libya is looking like a 3rd War for President Obama.

     I will stay my personal opinions on the conflict itself, and whether or not I support or do not support US military involvement in Libya. For this article, I will simply discuss the constitutionality of the actions of President Obama and discuss the seperation of powers in relation to the actions commited by his administration.

     Article I, Section 8.11 of the Constitution states, regarding the powers of Congress: "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." Note here that Congress is specifically given the power to declare war, not the President. Article II does state that the President is to act as Commander-In-Cheif of the Armed Forces. I completely respect and acknowledge this provision. However, there is quite a difference between leading a country in a war, and being the one to declare war. President Obama may well be the commander-in-cheif, but he clearly violated Article I, Section 8.11 when he effectively declared war on a foreign nation without the consent of Congress.

     The question of whether or not I personally would approve of a war with Libya, Gadhafi and his radical followers is irrelevant. The plain truth is that, whether or not it was in the United States' best interest (at least in his mind), President Obama violated the Law of the Land when he grossly overextended Executive Power and carried out an action specifically reserved for Congress in the Constitution.

     The current federal government is so completely out of whack with the way it was intended by the great Founding Fathers, and the seperation of powers in the constitution between the 3 branches, which were originally intended to place checks and balances on each branch to prevent it from becoming tyrannical, have been largely ignored. Whether it be the President doing the job of Congress by effectively declaring war, or the Supreme Court doing the job of Congress by legislating from the bench to fit their personal agendas.

     The Executive Branch in particular goes about abusing or overextending its power through the use of Executive Orders and resolutions. One particular violator of the constitution in history that I like to use as an example is FDR, who was quite fond of Executive Orders, (executive orders are orders issued by the president delegating an immediate action be taken without the necessary consent of congress. they are also prime examples of abuse of executive power) issuing several unconstitutional orders during his tenure, including one requiring all citizens to turn in their gold to local banks, etc.

     The reason I list FDR's example is because much of his policy and practice relates to our current President, whose abuse of power could've come straight from FDR's playbook. The abuse of executive power by presidents of either party over several administrations is simply astonishing.

     The preamble of the Constitution lists several reasons for adopting it, one of them being to "...provide for the common defense." Believe me when I tell you that no one believes more strongly in the Teddy Roosevelt/Ronald Reagan foreign policy of  "speak softly, but carry a big stick." Military action can be and is necessary when diplomacy fails and radicals wish to do harm to innocents. But if we, the United States, claim to march under a Constitution from which all laws are based, we cannot enter unjustly into an armed conflict with another nation without applying the due process of law so clearly detailed in the Articles of the Constitution. The debate of the necessity of the Libya conflict will be kept for a later debate. But there is no doubt that regardless of where it is taking place, the President does NOT have the authority to declare war. That ability lies solely with Congress.

Hello guys and thanks for staying with us! In this part of our journey through the constitution, we will be covering what powers are granted to congress.

When the founders were writing the constitution, they had seen that the Articles of Confederation were to open ended and weak, so they decided to incorporate checks and balances into our legislative system.

Starting from Article 1 Section 8 reads: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises…” You may be asking what some of those words mean, don’t worry; I will define them for you! Duties being: imports, exports, or manufactured goods. Impost being imports of different kinds similar to duties, and Excises being the federal sales tax. This seems like over taxation while just looking at it, but that is why the people must elect wise Representatives to adjust the tax levels. Another important note is that Representatives and Senators also must abide by these taxation laws.

“…To pay the debts…” This was due to the debt that the U.S had saddled itself with from the Revolutionary War, and all the States debts along with it.

“…and for the common defense...” Why did they write “common” before “defense?” Well, good question, they included it to clarify that the whole nation came under the “common defense.”

 “…and general welfare of the United States;...” I do believe that this has caused some mighty big confusion up in Washington. Let Thomas Jefferson explain what they meant by “welfare.” He said that this clause was not a grant of power to “spend” for the general welfare of the people, but that it was proposed to “limit the power of taxation” to issues which provided for the welfare of “the Union” or the welfare of the entire nation. Basically, federal taxes could not be levied for certain states, counties, cities, or special interest groups.

“…but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;…” The purpose of this is that it gave the people the right to not have discriminatory taxation placed upon them.

“…To borrow on the credit of the United States.” The purpose of this part basically gave congress the authority to create a national debt. In which we can see as of right now was maybe not the best decision. Thomas Jefferson was a great advocate for not wanting this. Very similar to what we see people saying now, is what he was saying back when writing this. “The question, whether one generation of men has a right to bind another,… is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of government. “

This next section will be covering America’s commerce, naturalization, and bankruptcy.

“…To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;...” This gives the federal government the exclusive power to regulate commerce between all foreign countries create a common market of free trade between all of the states including the Indian tribes.

“…To establish a uniform system of rules and regulations for the naturalization of those desiring to become citizens of the United States…” This gave Congress the right to decide how immigrants could become citizens of the United States. This was later re-defined by the 14th amendment.

“…To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;…” This gave Congress the right to make a uniform bankruptcy law to cover all of the states since all of the states had different laws.

The last section will consist of money, post offices, and copyrights and patents.

“…To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;...” This provision gave Congress the right to make its own national coin, lay out the weight and value it with other national currencies. The standard weights and measures means that Congress could provide a uniform currency to discontinue all of the states different types of currencies to all equal the same.

“…To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;…” This made it a federal crime to counterfeit U.S. securities and coins. As of now, the Secret Service, a branch of the Treasury Department handles all of the cases with counterfeiting.

“…To establish post offices and post roads;…” Basically, this gave congress the power to set up the U.S. Postal Service and determine the routes for which it should take for quickest delivery.

“…To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;…” This gave writers and inventors the exclusive right to their work for a designative amount of time. Through this clause, the U.S. has been able to become the worlds most innovative society yet.

“…To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;…” This gave Congress the responsibility to provide the people a sufficient federal court system.

“…To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;…” Because of piracy, commerce was heavily attacked on the seas, so now Congress could define and punish those crimes. The “law of nations” means international law. This allowed Congress to define crimes committed by other countries against the United States.

Well, that was a lot of information to ingest, but thanks for staying with me! Keep looking out for the next part of our Constitutional discussion!

-Matt

     Hey T4AT readers and fellow Patriots! In this post, I’m going to talk about Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution. Section 7 is about the Legislative process and explains what it takes for a bill to become a law in America. So grab that pocket Constitution, and let’s get started!

     As we all know, the Legislative Branch is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill will usually begin by saying “Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that…”

     Once the Representatives are elected by the people, all legislative powers are granted to them.

     “The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others…” –John Locke

     To begin, Section 7.1 of Article 1 says, “Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

     This part of Section 7 intended to make the House of Representatives responsible for raising taxes since they were the direct representatives of the people. This has changed somewhat, however, with the Seventeenth Amendment which also made the Senate elected by the people. The House still has the power of handling money legislation, but they aren’t the only branch of government that represents the people anymore.

     “The House of Representatives…will represent the immediate interests of the people. They will originate all money bills, which is one of the greatest securities in any republican government.” – James Iredell

     The founders feared giving monetary powers to the Senate because they were afraid it would create an aristocracy or even corruption.

     “…The first branch would be the immediate representatives of the people; the second would not. Should the latter have the power of giving away the people’s money, they might soon forget the source from whence they received it. We might soon have an aristocracy.” – George Mason

     “The Senate will be more likely to corrupt than the House of Representatives, and should therefore have less to do with money matters.” – Edmund Randolph

     To summarize, the founders gave the power of legislating money matters to the House of Representatives because they were the direct representatives of the people. And who knows how to spend the peoples’ money better than the people themselves, right? The Senate, however, has the power to amend or reject the legislation after it is approved in the House.

     Article 1.7.2 explains the process a bill must go through in order to become a law.

     Below is a flowchart from nutritionwsda.org which explains the process in simple terms.

     Click here to view the chart. (For some reason it wouldn't upload correctly, but it's a great visual for how the Legislative process works, so please check it out!)

     Finally, Article 1.7.3 says all Orders and Resolutions passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives will be presented to the president. From there, the president can either approve of the bill and sign it into  law or disapprove by vetoing the bill. However, the Senate and the House have the power to overturn the veto with a 2/3 vote in each house.

     In conclusion, Section 7 of Article 1 explains the process a bill must go through in order to become a law. Although the chart above makes it look simple, the road from legislation to law can be a long, slow-moving process. The checks and balances each House and branch of government has on each other is also a crucial part of our Republic as it ensures the law-making process is fair and in the peoples’ best interest. Thank you for reading, and check back for more Truth for American Teens Constitutional Discussions!

Taylor

Make sure you're reading the Constitution along with us!

~Karen

When I first started getting into Sec. 5 of Article 1, I thought “Oh gosh! This is so boring and pointless!” Okay, maybe I was having a bad day, but if you just glance over the section it doesn’t look very exciting. Boy was I wrong! Not only does this section show some very important rights of Congress, but it also shows how the founders were able to see potential problems in the future. So, with that, I hope I sparked your interest, and now, lets pick up our Constitutions (or click on it) and start into Section 5 of Article 1.

“Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.”

  The first part of Sec. 5 talks about two main things; judgment of election returns, and how many members need to be in the house/senate in order to vote.

  Ask yourself this, “Why is a Congressman elected?” Well, to represent the people of their district in Washington. The founders believed so strongly in the representation of the people that they wanted to make sure it was equal and fair for all. However, if there is a Congressman that has been elected illegally, does that give the people equal representation? No! So, the founders said, through this section, that if someone was suspected of being elected illegally or having “gross misconduct,” the House and Senate can judge if that person should be seated or not. Again this was to safe guard the equal representation of the people.

  This power of Congress has been used a few times in the past. One example is Frank Smith. In 1928 the Senate refused to seat him as senator of Illinois because money contributed to his campaign had been contributed by the Illinois Commerce Commission. What’s the problem there? Just the little fact that Frank Smith was a member of the Commission!

  One of the biggest things Congress has to do is vote. Voting though, can some times be a sticky issue if not done properly. Remember, the main goal of Congress is to represent the people and states that have sent them to Washington, and voting is a large part of representing the people! The question that came up to the founders, though, was this “How many members of Congress need to be present to vote?” The obvious answer would be to have the majority of Congress present to vote on issues, but the founders foresaw a problem. What if there was legislation on the floor, and some members just didn’t want it brought up for a vote. They could walk out so the majority wouldn’t be there, and thereby the legislation wouldn’t get voted on. Well, that would solve nothing!

  So, the founders came up with a brilliant idea! At the start of each session there has to be a set number (or quorum) of Congressional members present, but after that, all members could come and go as they pleased. This way “minor” legislation wasn’t delayed because there wasn’t a majority of members on the floor, and the members were free to perform their other duties. However, if a major vote is on the floor, then all the members are called to the floor. The Senate and the House can also penalize members that don’t make it on time to make the quorum at the beginning of the session.

“Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.”

  The next part of section 5 talks about the punishment of members of Congress, and the setting of rules are proceedings.

  The rules and proceedings mean that the House and Senate can set up their own way of conducting business (as long as is stays within the bounds of the Constitution) as they please.

  Now, for the punishment of members of Congress. The founders new that man was not perfect, as Madison said “If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Because of that fact, there needs to be punishment for those doing illegal activity, even though they are elected officials.

  There are three different types of punishment that can be carried out on a Congressman:

1.) Expulsion – This is the highest for of punishment, and it completely removes the Congressman from office with a 2/3 vote.

2.) Censure – The Congressmen did do something wrong, but Congress decides it isn’t bad enough to have him removed from office. So, they read him what is called a “Censure” before the entire Congress.

3.) Reprimand – Basically is a lighter version of a Censure, but also read before the entire Congress

“Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the Journal.”

  Next part! (We’re getting there don’t’ worry! You have learned something, right?) Ok, Each House is told here to keep a journal of its proceedings. This helps the public keep an eye on what their government is doing and helps them stay informed. The Constitution never set a time for the journal to be published, but William Davie believed it should at least be published by the close of the session.

  The Constitution does allow for some parts of the house and senate actions to be left out of the journal. However, the power to leave these things out is to be reserved for issues dealing with national defense or other “sensitive material”. When at war, you don’t really want your nation’s enemies to know what your government is doing, but on the flip side, this power could be abused if Congress chose to keep more away from the people’s knowledge.

“Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”

  Wrapping up this section (yes we are finally here!) we see some basic rules of order that were set up.

1.) Any questions that come up before he house had to be answered by a “yea” or “nay” vote, and the question was settled by the majority vote.

2.) If 1/5 of Congress wanted a role call vote in the House or Senate, a roll call vote is taken. This really helps the publish see exactly how their representatives votes, and it puts more pressure on their representative to really think about what he truly believes because EVERYONE will see how he voted!

3.) Neither house of Congress can adjourn for more then three days without both houses agreeing on the adjournment. This really showed the perception of the founders, when the looked at other county’s governments. They noted that in Great Britain’s parliament that one of the houses would adjourn for a long period of time and no legislation would get done. So, since it takes both houses to pass legislation, we wouldn’t want one skipping out on work without the others consent now would we? Of course not!

4.) This last part may sound silly to us; because we have our Capital Building in Washington, but that has not always been the case. So, this final part of Section 5 states that one house cannot meet in a different place without the other house’s consent. Again, Britain’s Parliament had this problem! In order to “frustrate objectionable legislation” one house would move to a different location without telling the other house. Yeah, that would get irritating real quick!

  I hope you weren’t to bored or bogged down by all that! These “simple” Congressional procedures may seem useless, but what if we didn’t have these rules of order set up? Well, nothing would ever really get passed! Again, it is amazing to me to look at this section and see the foreknowledge of the founders as they set up our government.

  Well, until next time, keep reading and keep studying!

~Karen