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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: The Reason Why Obama Will Not Invoke the 14th Amendment: The Supreme Court The Reason Why Obama Will Not Invoke the 14th Amendment: The Supreme Court Submitted by mark karlin on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 3:57pm. EditorBlog MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT There's a simple reason that President Obama will not invoke the 14th Amendment to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis: the Supreme Court. Yes, there is speculation that Obama is too risk averse to assert that the Constitution gives him the power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling - and that may be true. But Obama and his advisers know that if he bypasses Congress by using the 14th Amendment, it will immediately be challenged in the federal courts - which are loaded with partisan Republican judges - and fast tracked to the Supreme Court. With Scalia having led a partisan majority time and time again - including his stopping of the State Supreme Court-ordered presidential recount in Florida in 2004 so as not to harm the reputation of the presumed winner, George W. Bush, (Scalia wrote in justification of his infamous opinion) - it is a given that five members of the Supreme Court have no compunction about leaving the Constitution in the dust. As BuzzFlash has argued before, despite calling themselves "strict constructionists," the five majority votes on the Supreme Court are anything but. In fact, they often interpret the Constitution to justify their political outlook as they did in Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, and a host of other rulings that have dramatically affected the direction of this nation. Thom Hartmann views the 5-4 majority record as being so significant that they have become a de facto arm of the Republicans in Congress. Hartmann calls the GOP majority on the court the "Five Kings." The 14th Amendment is pretty clear when it comes to the debt ceiling: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." That's about as strict constructionist as you can get in prohibiting Congress from limiting the debt ceiling, even though it has been their tradition to vote on increasing it - as they frequently have done under Republican and Democratic presidents alike. But the "Supreme Court Five" aren't going to really enforce the Constitution as it is written, should Obama invoke the 14th Amendment. They will rule against presidential authority and side with the Republicans in Congress. Because their motivation in high-stakes partisan issues like this is not the law as it is written; it is scoring a victory for their political beliefs and sponsors. That is why President Obama will ultimately not assert the 14th Amendment to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis. The "Five Kings" won't allow him, in the end, to do so. ******
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#2. To: tom007 (#0)
It is not clear, under the 14th Amendment, if any remedy to the federal debt is susceptible of litigation. In any case, Presidential action in this crisis would probably buy enough time to make the Congress scurry to pass some remedial legislation of its own. Litigation could (1) be commenced in a number of different courts almost simultaneously, which could lead to conflicting results, and (2) take months to conclude, even perhaps going beyond Election Day 2012. It is true that a lot of judges were appointed by Republicans, but that doesn't mean that they are Teabaggers or even sympathetic to the current rule-or-ruin Republican agenda.
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