Boston Globe: Congress Must Rebuild The Presidency Or Something

This is a pretty heavy piece from the editorial board of the Boston Globe, perhaps not light reading for a Sunday evening. And it is bat guano insane

Congress must rebuild the presidency
The Protecting Our Democracy Act is Congress’s chance to protect the public from future American tyrants.

When Donald Trump lost the presidency, he left behind a treasure map for future American tyrants that shows them precisely how to undermine — and potentially destroy — American democracy. By constantly and shamelessly flouting anticorruption norms and laws, the former president exposed just how weak the United States’ system of checks and balances is and its desperate need for reform. And evading any accountability for now, he has proved that presidents can go so far as to foment an insurrection without facing any legal consequences.

Interesting. Trump, who tried to reduce the influence of the federal government on citizens, reduce regulations, reduce taxation, was a tyrant or something. I guess because he had mean tweets towards the highly partisan media?

The American presidency has, in turn, become a ticking time bomb, waiting for a future tyrant to abuse its power in order to succeed where Trump failed. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Just as Jimmy Carter signed anticorruption reforms into law after Richard Nixon’s crooked presidency, President Biden must swiftly establish new laws that strengthen accountability for himself and his successors.

Yeah, it’s Biden refusing to enforce the duly passed immigration laws, as required by the Constitution. It’s Biden implementing all sorts of COVID mandates, who’s refusing to send medications to states like Florida who annoy him. Who’s trying to force citizens into electric vehicles. Who took advantage of his position to make lots of money. And so much more.

The good news is that Congress may be on its way to sending Biden a bill to do just that. Known as the Protecting Our Democracy Act, the bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation that Congress will deliberate during Biden’s presidency, and it sets the stage for the federal government to finally address the damage that Trump imposed on the office. “We discovered over the last four years just how much our system is reliant on certain norms of behavior that we thought were inviolate,” Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, the lead sponsor of the bill, told the Globe editorial board. “It turns out so many of the protections of our system are easily flouted.”

If Liberals love this bill, you know there are lots of things being missed that are meant to instituted 1 party control with more power to the feds.

If it’s passed, the bill would strengthen enforcement mechanisms that protect the government and the public from presidential abuse of power as well as introduce new and reasonable restraints on the executive branch. Among other things, it would give Congress more oversight over presidential pardons that may be self-serving and make explicit that presidents cannot pardon themselves; strengthen enforcement of laws like the Hatch Act or the Constitution’s emoluments clause; bolster Congress’s subpoena power by fast-tracking judicial proceedings and empowering courts to levy fines on government officials who do not comply; and require presidents and vice presidents, as well as candidates for those offices, to release 10 years of their tax returns — a provision that was recently dropped from the voting rights bill that congressional Democrats are seeking to pass.

Already you can see this will be shot down in full unless there is some severability. 10 years of tax returns? The Constitution states “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” That’s it. Period. Those are the requirements. There is no measure for changing that, adding to that, without an Amendment. This is simply more Trump Derangement Syndrome because he refused to release his tax returns.

Pardons? “and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Again, there is nothing in there that gives Congress the ability to change that nor require oversight.

Emoluments? If they want to strengthen that, pass an Amendment.

Another reported White House concern is the bill’s provisions that ban presidents from firing inspectors general without good cause. But after Trump’s explicit attack on inspectors general — “I think we’ve been treated very unfairly by inspector generals,” he said, after firing a bunch of them — it’s important to give the executive branch watchdogs an extra layer of protection.

They serve at the pleasure of the President. Period. But, see, Democrats only complain when Republicans fire them.

If they want real change, repeal the 17th Amendment, go back to the original way of having state general assemblies appoint Senators, giving power back to the states. I’ll let you read a whole reasoning here. Term limits for the House. One of the complaints the bill looks to fix is spending by the Executive Branch. Well, start passing targeted bills. Specific bills. Bills that have no latitude except as intended. When they passed OSHA, did anyone consider that they would manufacture the ability (supposedly) to mandate vaccines? Where did the authority to implement a contraception mandate come from? There is nothing about contraception in Obamacare. Where did it come from? How about the mandate for Ocare regarding employer size? That was left up for HHS.

Congress passes laws, the Executive Office enforces them. How about the Obama regime refusing to enforce federal law on marriage? Biden admin refusing to enforce immigration law?