Are some Senators in our Congress just plain inept (Displaying a lack of judgment, sense, or reason; foolish), dunces or just plain idiots?
Will the ones that voted for Czar Cass Sunstein’s confirmation pull a Charlie Gibson of “I didn’t know”?
Sunstein: Obama, not courts, should interpret law
‘Beliefs and commitments’ of nation’s leader should supersede judges
September 18, 2009
By Aaron Klein
The interpretation of federal law should be made not by judges but by the beliefs and commitments of the U.S. president and those around him, according to President Obama’s newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
“There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitments and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him,” argued Sunstein.
This statement was the central thesis of Sunstein’s 2006 Yale Law School paper, “Beyond Marbury: The Executive’s Power to Say What the Law Is.” The paper, in which he argues the president and his advisers should be the ones to interpret federal laws, was obtained and reviewed by WND.
Sunstein debated the precedent-setting 1803 case, Marbury v. Madison, which determined it is “emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
He lamented multiple recent examples of U.S. presidents interpreting law only to have their interpretations overturned by the Supreme Court.
He concludes “the executive should usually be permitted to interpret (law) as it reasonably sees fit.”
“The allocation of law-interpreting power to the executive fits admirably well with the twentieth-century shift from common law courts to regulatory administration if the governing statute is ambiguous,” he writes.
Sunstein is not shy about expressing his radical beliefs in papers and books, although many of his controversial arguments have received little to no news media attention or public scrutiny.
Earlier this week, WND first reported Sunstein drew up in an academic book a “First Amendment New Deal” – a new “Fairness Doctrine” that would include the establishment of a panel of “nonpartisan experts” to ensure “diversity of view” on the airwaves.
WND also reported Sunstein proposed a radical new “bill of rights” in a 2004 book, “The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever,” in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state.
WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled “The Constitution in 2020,” which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.
Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a “progressive” consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.
Read this entire article HERE:
His confirmation was held up in June 2009 because of his beliefs.
It is not like his beliefs and background were not discussed on the Senate floor:
Discussion excerpt from Sen. Sessions (the day Sunstein was confirmed 9-10-09) on Senate floor follows:
9-10-09
During President Reagan’s time, I believe, Congress passed a law that created this position: the Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the idea being to have another unelected bureaucrat–and that is what this one is–but to be a central clearinghouse for all the proposed regulations and to question the lawfulness or the necessity or the cost of these thousands of regulations that get promulgated on a yearly basis.
It is an important position that can protect and at least somewhat ensure that our constitutional liberties are not being eroded.
“Enter Mr. Sunstein . He is a most likable person, a national intellectual, always interesting, sometimes taking positions that those on the left–of which he clearly is a part–disagree. Indisputably, he is a man of the left. However, he has taken, over the years, quite a number of positions, some of which are pretty shocking. So I think he is not normally the kind of person you would appoint to this kind of green-eyeshades position–somebody who would be sitting down on a daily basis reading the regulations and studying them and researching them–to be a free spirit, as our nominee is. So I have some concerns about it.
Over the course of his career in academia, Professor Sunstein has clearly advocated a number of positions that are outside–well outside–the American mainstream. While much of the criticism of his nomination rightly has focused on his animal rights advocacy, where he, in effect, and plainly said he thought animals should be able to have lawyers appointed to defend their interests–and these are controversial matters–but he has other legal writings that are controversial also and do not just deal with the question of animal rights. I would like to highlight just a few of those positions.
In his 2008 book titled “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness,” Professor Sunstein advocates an approach to the law based on economic and behavioral principles which he dubs “libertarian paternalism.”
Under Professor Sunstein’s theory, the government can take steps to “nudge” individuals toward making what he would say are better decisions, and at least what the government considers to be more desirable social behavior.
Professor Sunstein argues that the government can achieve these goals while not being actively, or at least obviously, coercive. His theory operates on the assumption that the average person is “lazy, busy, impulsive, inert, irrational, and highly susceptible to predictable biases and errors.”
So the government needs to be a little paternalistic, he suggests, and take care of them and issue regulations and pass laws that keep them from doing things that some bureaucrat or some Congressman thinks is not socially desirable.”
As Professor Sunstein argues:
For too long, the United States has been trapped in a debate between the laissez-faire types who believe markets will solve all our problems and the command-and-control types who believe that if there is a market failure then you need a mandate. The laissez-faire types are right that ….. government can blunder, so opt-outs are important. The mandate types are right that people are fallible, and they make mistakes, and sometimes people who are specialists know better and can steer people in directions that will make their lives better.
That is what he has said.
Presumably, in Professor Sunstein’s view, the “specialists” who “know better” than ordinary Americans are government bureaucrats. He seems to believe Americans are “lazy” and “inert,” and I think this is not a healthy view. So I question whether anyone who thinks Americans are fundamentally lazy can perform his role as the gatekeeper of government regulation in the Obama administration.
Professor Sunstein’s approach is consistent with much of what we have seen from this administration, I have to say, which seems to believe that government control of health care, the financial markets, and the business community generally is preferable to free market policies. Americans are not comfortable with this.
I have been out having townhall meetings. I know they are not comfortable with it. According to recent polling, 52 percent of voters worry that the government will do too much to “help” the economy.
That is from a Rasmussen poll of June 2, 2009. Fifty-nine percent of voters believe the financial bailouts were a “bad idea.” The masters of the universe thought it was going to be great. We spent $800 billion, the largest expenditure in the history of the American Republic, and every penny of that is going to the national debt because we were already in debt. We borrowed every penny of it. We have had very low stimulative effect from that. The American people are right about that.
Only 31 percent of voters believe this stimulus bill has helped the economy. And we do not need a poll to tell us how uncomfortable the American people are with the President’s effort to overhaul health care.
So the American people ought to understand if we confirm Professor Sunstein , he will be the chief architect and gatekeeper over all of the regulations that this administration will be attempting to implement in a myriad of areas.”
After Senator Sessions completed his discussion:
Under the previous order, the question is, will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of Cass R. Sunstein , of Massachusetts, to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget?
The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. BOXER) and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. BYRD) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced–yeas 57, nays 40, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 274 Ex.]
YEAS–57
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Bennet
Bennett
Bingaman
Brown
Burris
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Hatch
Inouye
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Voinovich
Warner
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS–40
Alexander
Barrasso
Begich
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
Lincoln
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Risch
Roberts
Sanders
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Vitter
Webb
Wicker
NOT VOTING–2
Boxer
Byrd
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table.
The President shall be immediately notified of the Senate’s action
My own end note:
Is your Senator on the list of Yea’s?
Mine is and I will start to work toward voting them OUT in their next re-election cycle.