Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Musings as to whether we have a true Constitution, or a Potemkin charter

February 5, 2023 --

This far, the media haven't spewed a torrent of editorials blasting Speaker McCarthy for his decision to bar Reps. Schiff and Swalwell from the House Intelligence elect Committee. LPR's theory -- they realize their obvious double standard would put off independent voters.

Apparently, Pelosi's decision to exclude Congressmen Banks and Jordan from the Jan, 6 House select committee represented her power to act -- as speaker. The vote of the full House is needed to exclude members of Congress from standing Huse committee. Republican representatives Gosar and Taylor-Greene were excluded from their committee assignments by 9partisan) vote of the full House.

LPR believes the courts have not ruled, directly, on the issue of exclusion from a standing House committee. The decision of U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, in U.S. v. Navarro, to see nothing improper in the actions takensby the Jan. 6 Select Committee, and thereby, sustaining the two subpoenas that Navarro defied, suggests to LPR that as Judge Mehta had no difficulty with the exclusion of Republicans Banks and Jordan from the Jan. 6 Select committee, his acceptance of their exclusion from a select committee would be dispositive if Democrats Schiff and Swalwell litigated their exclusion from he House Intelligence Selct Committee. r

LPR points out that were a court to invalidate Speaker McCarthy's exclusion of Schiff and Swalwell from the House Select Committee on Intelligence, a hue and cry from liberty-loving Americans would reach the heavens: "OMG, our government system is indeed rigged, corrupt, an utter disgrace ti the memiry of the Founders. We have a Potemkin Constitution!"

Leftists in the media and in government have also been demanding that Rep. George Santos be removed from the House. Their demands betray their ignorance of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, strictly applied by the Supreme Court in the Powell csse. Rather than cie the words of Chief Justice Earl Warren, LPR here flings this passage from Federal Paper No. 52 in the faces of those who, by hook and by cook, would try to restore he Democrats to majority status in the House of Representatives:

"A representative of he United States must be of the age of twenty-five years; must have been seven years a citizen of the United States; must, at the time of his election, be an inhabitant of the State he is to represent; and, during the time of his service, must be in no office under the United States." Now which of the foregoing qualifications for House membership would media people from PBS, among other outlets, demand excision for being "racist?"

There remains the issue of exclusion of a House member from a standing committee. Does the Constitution sanction continued House membership with the onus of committee exclusion? Perhaps the answer to this question must await a lawsuit based on
expulsion of a member from a standing committee by vote of the entire House.

For now, it is enough to comment that if Rep. Santos is pressured to resign while meeting the Constitution's qualifications for membership, we indeed have a Potemkin Constitution, with the malign Deep Staters at government's switch.