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| Constitution may be barrier to Sec of State Hillary |
| 2008-11-26 |
| From a Nov 24 email to the Volokh.com site from a Constitutional scholar. The Emoluments Clause of Article I, section 6 provides "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time." As I understand it, President Bush's executive order from earlier this year "encreased" the "Emoluments" (salary) of the office of Secretary of State. Last I checked, Hillary Clinton was an elected Senator from New York at the time. Were she to be appointed to the civil Office of Secretary of State, she would be being appointed to an office for which "the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased" during the time for which she was elected to serve as Senator. The plain language of the Emoluments Clause would thus appear to bar her appointment ... if the Constitution is taken seriously (which it more than occasionally isn't on these matters, of course). |
| Posted by:mhw |
| #6 Clinton might offer to take the office for say a dollar; then the emoluments from Senator to Secretary of State would not be increased. As has been said, these are liberals and they will try to do as they damn well please. They think the Constitution as are the Ten Commandments mere guides for behavior and not binding but subject to loose interpretation. Same for laws. In other words, according to liberals, one can pick and choose which ones to adhere to as is convenient. |
| Posted by: Lonzo Thomolet8930 2008-11-26 17:41 |
| #5 To leftists, the Constitution is a living document. Besides, Bush shredded the Constitution for the inmates at Gitmo, so anything that is in the constitution that is inconvenient can be safely ignored. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2008-11-26 14:56 |
| #4 What does our constitutional lecturer elect have to say about this?...What's that, it was his idea....oh. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-11-26 14:48 |
| #3 Constitution may be barrier to Sec of State Hillary Ha! Like that's stopped the Clinton's in the past? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-11-26 14:03 |
| #2 This'll have about as much traction as demanding to see Obama's birth certificate. These are leftists -- they don't use the Constitution. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-11-26 13:49 |
| #1 to paraphrase, "A constitution means what I say it means, nothing more, nothing less." |
| Posted by: Jeremiah Omuck5913 2008-11-26 13:36 |