U.S. Senator Wyden Raises Constitutional Questions About ACTA

bs0d3 writes "In a written letter which can be found here, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden questions President Obama's authority to sign ACTA without Congressional approval. 'It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,' Wyden writes. 'But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law ... the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress' authority, absent congressional approval.'"

Comments

Re:I actually agree with the Democrat here

[DesScorp]

You assume the Senate is functioning...

But what about cases where it is not, like now?

The Senate is functioning as it was designed to, as a break on both the House and the Presidency. The Senate was never supposed to be a rubber-stamp, for either the President or the House.

  The whole point of a Senate is to have a group of men to take a deep look at what the House (which was always supposed to be the popular voice of the people) passes in the heat of the moment, and it was designed to prevent the President from becoming a Caesar. This is why treaties have to be voted on by the Senate, and why the President's appointments to his cabinet and to SCOTUS have to be reviewed, scrutinized, and voted on by the Senate. This is also why Senators were not popularly elected when the Constitution was written, but appointed by state legislators. The whole idea of the founders was to put a second party into the Congress that was indirectly responsible to the people (via their elected state houses), but not popularly elected, and thus less subject to the passions of the moment. I used to support popular election of Senators, but the older I've gotten, the more I think the founders had it right in the first place, and that the 17th Amendment was a mistake.

Also, if you want things to pass easier in the Senate... the way they do in the House, with a simple majority vote, well, the way is clear here. Just demand that the Senate drop their unique rules requiring 60 votes. That rule is not in the Constitution, but an internal Senate rule (which the Constitution permits).

Just be careful before you demand this. Because if the Senate goes to simple-majority vote, so can future Senates... ones where the other party is the majority.