Tag Archives: Article II

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TIME IS UP FOR “TIME TO TIME”

Did you watch this week’s State of the Union address? 

I sure as hell didn’t. I phoned a friend, played a computer baseball game (OOTP – I highly recommend it!) and cleaned some of the mess on my desk.

Three years ago, we were in Palm Springs when President Biden delivered the speech. His detractors – and even some supporters – wondered if he’d become too addled to stay focused. Biden proved to be pretty sharp and the speech bolstered his standing in the polls.

And that’s the problem.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution contains this line about the role of the president: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

There are three things that are archaic about that sentence. The first was noticed immediately by any woman who reads this blog. The second was the unnecessary Capitalization of select Nouns.

The third is the whole damn speech.

Tuesday night was a spectacle. Trump spent a record one hour and 47 minutes telling us how great he is, how lousy Democrats are and tarnishing any glow the U.S. men’s hockey team earned by winning the gold medal in Milan.

But let’s be fair. It’s not just Trump who has made the State of the Union anything but what the founders intended. The speech has been a political event more than an actual government function for a long time. 

Republicans heckle Democratic presidents. Democrats heckle Republican presidents. The presidents get their speechwriters to deliver gotcha lines to garner headlines – back in the day of newspapers and broadcast news – and memes, for social media today.

But does any president actually give Congress information about what’s going on in or concerning the United States of America?

You and Congress already know. It’s on TV or online. It’s in the e-mails and texts you get from friends, family and organizations you support. 

All the president does is either repeat the facts or, too often in Trump’s case, tell you not to believe your eyes and ears.

That wasn’t the case when Alexander Hamilton was singing about taking his shot while helping to craft the Constitution in 1787 (OK, he probably wasn’t singing, but I’m having a fond flashback about seeing “Hamilton” with my daughter.)

Up until the early 20th century, the president probably did reveal things in the State of the Union about what was happening in this country. Of course, up until the 20th century, the president also didn’t generally deliver a State of the Union speech – it was Woodrow Wilson, in the first year of his presidency, who began a tradition of an in-person address to Congress.

Until that time, the president sent a letter to Congress meeting the requirements of Article II, Section III. 

But Wilson’s appearance came at the dawn of the broadcast age. It was on radio and it was a way to emphasize the second part of Article II, Section 3 – “and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Over the past 113 years, that’s what it has become. A free political ad for a president’s agenda. A chance to get his message to the American people without the filter of analysis or context that journalists provide.

What a waste of time and energy! Nothing was accomplished by Trump’s speech except that his supporters heard what they wanted to hear and we detractors found another reason – as if we needed it – to get ticked off that this buffoon holds the nation’s highest office.

Wouldn’t you rather have seen a new episode of “High Potential” on ABC or the season premiere of “NCIS” on CBS? Or a good college basketball game? Or the replay of a spring training game?

Because you were more likely to learn something about the state of the union from any of those broadcasts than from hearing Trump spew.

If there’s going to be an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution after the Trump debacle – and I’m beginning to think there really needs to be, since in many ways this document is failing a stress test – it might be that time to time has run out for the State of the Union.

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ARTICLE II

Here’s what I imagine happened:

One night, in his first presidency, Trump was in the White House room where he does the most thinking, the bathroom.

Normally, that’s where the most feculent thing he does is send out messages on social media on whatever flitters through his mind. But this particular night, he must have left his BlackBerry somewhere.

Instead, he grabbed whatever was lying around. It just so happened to be a copy of the Constitution.

He certainly could care less about the Preamble, with that “We the People,” “domestic Tranquility” and “Blessings of Liberty” stuff. And Article I was about the Congress, the bane of his existence. It mentioned what Congress’ powers are, but why should any of that matter?

But then he came to Article II.

Here’s how it starts: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

He really didn’t bother to read after that, certainly not after that long part about the election of the president, most of which was changed by the 12th Amendment.

This was a sentence Trump thought he understood. Because, after all, wasn’t he an executive? In his mind, a great executive – somehow forgetting those multiple bankruptcies.

From that reading, Trump and his enablers have understood Article II to allow him to do whatever he wants. 

If Article II, Section 1, paragraph 1 was all there was to the Constitution, Trump might be right.

The problem is that, as I’ve tried to illustrate over the past few weeks, if you actually read the whole thing – the Preamble, the seven Articles and the 28 (again, I’m with Biden that the ERA is part of the Constitution) Amendments, Trump’s reading of our founding document is woefully incomplete. 

But Trump, Musk and the demon devils in their sway are citing Article II as the reason they have the right to terminate federal employees at will. As they see it, Trump’s the executive – a variation on the word execute. 

And that’s what he intends to be, the man who executes democracy for the benefit of himself and those who support him. 

If he and his supporters actually did READ THE CONSTITUTION – as they say their opponents haven’t – they wouldn’t have to go far into Article II to see this little gem from Section 3: 

he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed

That would include the right of due process spelled out in the Bill of Rights, even for people in this country undocumented. That would include the judicial authority spelled out in Article III to rule on whether the action of any individual in this country, including the president, is legal – a power that does not fall on the executive branch. That would include provisions against Emoluments – getting gifts or payments that exceed his constitutional limitation. 

That would include abiding by laws duly passed by Congress affecting such things as civil service and civil rights – and by constitutional amendments ratified by the states that grant citizenship to anyone born in this country and limit a president of the United States to two terms in office.

Perhaps the way to combat Trump’s invocation of Article II is to take legal action finding him in violation of Article II. I wonder what that would take.

I don’t know how we’re going to stop what’s happening to our country. I’ve read every word of this Constitution over the past two months, and there’s nothing in here about how you act against an executive intent on running roughshod over it, especially when a small majority in Congress is complicit in it.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t imagine anyone as craven as Trump. I can’t blame them, because we didn’t see this either. We thought Richard Nixon would be the worst president we ever saw. 

But we’ve got to figure out something. And by “we’ve,” I mean political leaders, civic leaders, corporations, educators, artists and anyone else you can think of. What Chuck Schumer did last week in capitulating to Trump and the Republicans was extraordinarily unhelpful.

And we just can’t allow Trump to use our Constitution – Article II included – to wipe himself when he’s done. 

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