Representative Michele Bachmann played hostess Monday to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court in the first of what she said would be several “constitutional seminars” for members of the House.
Monday’s seminar, which Ms. Bachmann’s office said was attended by 30 to 35 House members, including at 4 Democrats, focused on the separation of powers. The session was closed to the media, but afterward some members described Justice Scalia’s remarks as probing and funny, and said he told them to “pay attention to the Constitution.”
The Obama administration’s health care law did not come up in Mr. Scalia’s remarks or during the question-and-answer session, Ms. Bachmann said. Instead, she said, the session focused on other issues, like whether earmarks would be considered constitutional, though she declined to provide Mr. Scalia’s thoughts on the matter.
Ms. Bachmann declined to comment on other matters, like her flirtation with a 2012 run at the White House, or the fact that she is giving a response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, in addition to the official Republican response planned by Representative Paul Ryan. “It’s not a competition,” she said, as she headed off down the hall.
Ms. Bachmann said she would be inviting other members of the court to speak to members of Congress, as well as law professors and other constitutional scholars. “We will be extending an invitation to any of the justices who would like to speak with us,” she said. “We’d be honored to have any of them come that are there, and whether they are liberal or conservative we leave it for your judgment to determine.”
She added later, “The Constitution is not a partisan document.”
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The new Republican majority has ordered that the United States Constitution be read on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday, the day after new lawmakers are sworn in. Congressional historians say they believe this has been done only twice before.
It reflects the influence of the Tea Party movement, which has celebrated the founding document and argues that Congress has blown the lid on federal spending by vastly exceeding the powers granted to it in the Constitution. Tea Party supporters say Congress could reduce taxes and spending if it would only stick to a strict interpretation of the document. (Another rule of the new Republican majority requires lawmakers proposing legislation to note how it would be authorized by the Constitution.)
But if the Tea Party hears one thing in a reading of the Constitution, many Democrats and liberals hear another. They welcome the emphasis on the Constitution, they say, but they also believe that the framers left the language deliberately vague so that We the People of successive generations would be able to interpret it as the United States evolved.
Despite the framers’ stated intentions in the preamble to the Constitution, there is little “domestic tranquility” when it comes to interpreting what the document means.
Read an annotated guide to the clauses most revered, and disputed, by advocates on either side of the political spectrum. Read more…
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Attention Americans, especially you in Dearborn, Mich., and Frankford, Texas. Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada is suggesting that Sharia, or Islamic religious law, is taking hold in your towns. Angle made the suggestion at a rally last week in Mesquite in response to a man who asked about the proposed Islamic community center [...]
Head of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) David Walker says that the US economy is unsustainable and as the baby boomer generation begins to retire medicaid will destroy the economy. Dear Reddit, My reddit profile is questionmark could you hook me up with some karma, please?
The Constitution has been a frequent rallying cry at Republican and Tea Party events this summer. If you ask Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Rand Paul and other conservative politicians, defending that sacred document written by the founders and amended by the people of the United States of America, is No. 1 on their national agenda. [...]
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