On Wednesday, William Galston in his Politics and Ideas column in the op-ed section of the Wall Street, opined that "J. D. Vance is unfit to be vice president of the United States for many reasons, chiefly because he has shown a disregard for the constitutional balance of powers and for the rule of law."
In support of that opinion, Galston cites Vance's 2021 interview with podcast host Jack Murphy in which Vance, in effect, stated that the president can ignore and not enforce laws and judicial rulings the President dislikes despite Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution that requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" -- all laws, not just those with which he agrees.
Galston also notes that the president takes an oath "to preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution. The author goes even further and contends that "Mr. Trump unfortunately appears to share his running mate's disregard for the Constitution" when he stated that the alleged 2020 election fraud allowed for "the termination of all rules . . . even those in the Constitution."
Galston ominously concludes that "[t]he preservation of the constitutional order is at stake in the 2024 presidential election . . ."
Richard Gossett
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A Thursday letter referred to a biased op-ed From William Galston saying that J.D. Vance “in effect” would ignore the Constitution. Notice the “in effect” because that is a biased opinion, not what was actually said. But that is not the real problem. Political seasons are built on lies by the Democrat/Republican monopoly power.
The real problem is that Mr. Gossett and others hide their heads in the sand. For the last 3 ½ years the Biden/Harris administration has been actually doing the exact thing you and Galston are accusing Vance of saying. They have ignored and not enforced the laws and judicial rulings the President (or whoever actually is in charge) dislikes despite Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution that requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”.
From failure to enforce immigration laws, to repeatedly defying court decisions to have minimum wage workers pay for doctor, lawyers and politicians' student loans, the Biden/Harris administration and the hugely Democrat federal employees (some call “deep state”) ignore the laws and Constitution on a regular basis.
But I have to also say, both Democrat and Republican parties do that. Both sides of that warped coin work to concentrate control in an all-powerful central government. That is what the Revolutionary War was fought to get away from. To take power from the dictators of corrupt government actions, the design of the Constitution was to support individual liberty.
But now, after decades of bad court decisions, ignoring the 10th Amendment has allowed the federal government to infect and destroy so much of our liberty. The state governments have become ineffective in large part because of the political decision resulting in the 17th Amendment removing the states having any representation in Congress. There was reasoning behind having senators as “statesmen” not politicians. Now they are no different that the political House of Representatives. The 17th Amendment should be repealed the same as 18th (prohibition) was. Many also believe that the 16th (income tax) should also be, but that would now take a whole lot of planning and change and could not work until or unless the size of the federal government is drastically reduced.
The ability to amend the Constitution is one of the great ideas the founders put into it. What they did not include was to give the President the Constitutional power to ignore the laws passed as the Biden/Harris administration has actually done, not just say something a political bigot can falsely state as “in effect” was said.
Jim Hill