What should the next President's SECOND action be?

[erik_kosberg]

1. Get the hell out of Iraq.

After that, what? Revive the Fourth Amendment? End state-sponsored torture? Something else?

[pippadaisy[$]]

What SHOULD it be or what WILL it be? Because I feel a Ford coming on.

[eris esoteric]

Urge Congress to write bills specifying power limitations on the executive branch, and sign them into law.

[pippadaisy[$]]

Um, I thought that was already set up in that Constitution thing they tossed out somewhere...

[rmthunter]

2. Rescind all of Bush's executive orders.

[jgibson2[$]]

rmthunter said

2. Rescind all of Bush's executive orders.

And at least half of the preceding 3 presidents.

[theworm[$]]

Ok - this is a lovely place for snark, and everyone here knows that those of us who don't agree with the Presidents policy in Iraq have some serious complaints, but there is a serious question here. If we do pull out of Iraq - then what. I think we, as a country, are in a big mess - so if we were to get out of Iraq, what, seriously, do we do?

[rmthunter]

theworm said

I think we, as a country, are in a big mess - so if we were to get out of Iraq, what, seriously, do we do?

About what?

Do you mean about the consequences for the Iraqis and the Middle East as a whole? Do you mean about our loss of moral authority in the world?

Do you mean about the erosion of our environmental protections by regulation, or the erosion of worker safety standards, consumer protection standards (as in the head of the federal bureau charged with oversight on consumer safety asking Congress not to give her bureau any money), workplace safety standards?

Or the erosion of civil rights, protection from government spying, use of taxpayer money to implement programs based on religious doctrine?

(actually, thinking about that last group, another second thing to do, but it's actually Congress' job -- impeach all of Bush's appointees. The courts are not going to help us on those.)

Wait! I've got it: Privatize the government!

[theworm[$]]

That was my question, Bob - about all of it.
We as a country need to prioritize - despite what we all want, we can't fix everything at once - so if people want to pull out, that's going to create new issues on top of all the ones we have now. What would "the perfect" leader do given the state we are/will be in?

We like to criticize the administration (I do), but what do we want done now - by either the current administration or our ideal administration. We're a mess - whats the plan to get out of it - one step at a time?

[rmthunter]

theworm said

That was my question, Bob - about all of it.
We as a country need to prioritize - despite what we all want, we can't fix everything at once - so if people want to pull out, that's going to create new issues on top of all the ones we have now. What would "the perfect" leader do given the state we are/will be in?

We like to criticize the administration (I do), but what do we want done now - by either the current administration or our ideal administration. We're a mess - whats the plan to get out of it - one step at a time?

I'm not so sure that we need to prioritize in terms of actually doing the fixing, but in terms of what the fix needs to be. The government is big, with a lot of separate departments, and a lot of what has been done has been by fiat -- regs rather than legislation. Can we fix things all at once? Sure, the same way they have been screwed up all at once: by repealing or changing the regs.

Maybe Congress should consider legislation to limit the scope of federal regulations. That's something that even libertarians should love. (I'd also like to see Congress pass legislation forbidding the courts to consider presidential signing statements in interpreting the law.)

In the meantime, all those Democratic political appointees can be unscrewing what's been screwed.

[theworm[$]]

I hear you.

[frazzledspice]

I think that we need to do something about lifetime appointments of federal judges.

Article III

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

While the Constitution mentions "during good behavior" there is no mention of "lifetime appointments."

In this debate, the idea of 15 year judicical appointments is brought up:

The fact is that lifetime tenure has created a powerful temptation to presidents to pick young ideologues, who can change the balance on the bench and leverage that president's impact for many decades after he leaves office. Lifetime tenure thereby ratchets up the stakes of each appointment, giving opposition parties more incentive to block as many presidential nominees as possible, whatever their ideology, to leave more lifetime slots for a future president of their own party.

Legal Affairs Debate Club - Term Limits for Judges?

At the very least, there should be a mandatory retirement age (I believe we have one justice who will be 88 next April, hanging on for dear life until a Democrat wins the White House....)

There are some Presidents whom we wouldn't want impacting the future of our country for generations to come, and I believe one of those is in office right now. While I don't believe that Alito and Roberts deserve the title of "ideologue" as much as Scalia does, who knows who Bush would appoint next, if given the chance?

[drmomentum[$]]

No matter what the president does, it's important that he tell me repeatedly that he's protecting me from the terrorists, so that I know who to thank for every precious second of my life that I'm allowed to live.

But seriously, I'll go with reviewing and rescinding bad executive orders, and justifying ones that are not rescinded.

And when Hell freezes over, that will also solve the global warming problem.

[rmthunter]

I'm ambivalent about the whole lifetime appointment of judges thing. On the one hand, it serves a very good purpose in insulating them from the political pressures of having to run for office (which has given us some real doozies in Illinois). That's something that no one seems to bring up in these debates, and it seems very important to me. Of course, the flip side of that is exactly the problem Frazz points out. I certainly would consider Alito and Roberts to be ideologues; it's just that Roberts, at least, is quiet about it, but if you look at the opinions he has joined, there's no doubt. (I'm still scratching my head over how Scalia got such a reputation as a solid legal scholar: I've read some of his opinions, and they're not really very cogent -- or coherent.)

There was a time, not too long ago, when politics did not play such a large part in the appointment process -- don't forget that Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed by Reagan as a conservative justice. The right would like to hang her almost as much as it would Hillary Clinton, because she actually made decisions on the basis of the law. (Of course, there was a time not too long ago when the government was not an arm of either political party.)

There's been an ongoing series of posts over at Balkinization about revamping the Constitution that is starting to make more and more sense to me, ardent Constitutionalist though I am. It's just that I shudder to think what a Constitutional Convention would come up with these days. Some of the arguments those guys are making are pretty compelling, though.

I'd love to see a provision that puts a sunset clause into every law passed by Congress and every regulation promulgated by the administration, so that everything has to be reviewed and re-justified periodically.