Society for Aesthetic Deletions

It's completely real.

Guess no one bothered to teach the Congress basic civics.

Yep, it is "real" — I found it on the www.house.gov website.

My initial response to this was outrage coupled with a huge doubt that it would ever get out of committee. But then I thought about it. When Congress passes a bill, the President can veto it. That's part of our system of checks and balances. The SCOTUS can determine that either a presidential order or a law enacted by congress is unconstitutional. More checks and balances. But who checks the Supreme Court? In an ideal world, perhaps this would be an advance of democracy — allowing the people's elected representatives to overrule appointed officials.

Of course, what happens if HR3920 passes and then the Supremes rule it unconstitutional? Although my memory of high school civics class is dim and fuzzy, it does seem that the right of the SCOTUS to rule on the constitutionality of government actions was established with Marbury v. Madison, rather than in the Constitution.

Then again, this is the congress that gave away their power to declare war to Mr. Bush. Why should they be entrusted with overriding the Supreme Court? And, in a more cynical vein, whose special interests are vested in this? The Christo-Fascists? Korporate Amerika? Or is this a genuine attempt at democracy?

Elderbear

Fighting creeping fascism one HTML tag at a time.