Controlling Administrations you don't like

[Volokh, Eugene]

    If the removal isn't done by Congress or by the voters, whom is it
going to be done by?  State legislatures?  The Supreme Court?  What
other constitutionally significant entities are there out there?
 
    Eugene    
 
-----Original Message-----
From: RJLipkin at aol.com [mailto:RJLipkin at aol.com] 
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 12:08 PM
To: Volokh, Eugene; conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Controlling Administrations you don't like




        Maybe the choices are as stark as Eugene seems to portray them:
our method of (congressional) removal and a "voter-initiated recall." I
would need to study the different possibilities of institutional design
before deciding for myself whether there are other possibilities or
before I embraced a voter recall system or some combination of both
congressional and voter removal. 
 
        My question was whether the ordinary structures of change can
deal with extreme cases where a wayward executive branch is doing
terrible damage to the short- and long-term interests of the nation and
the world. Maybe there are no reasonable alternatives. But one can
certainly challenge that conclusion. Much more important, is whether the
argument "this is as good as it gets" regarding our method of removal is
tantamount to concluding that this is good. I don't think so. Moreover,
it suggests a certain complacency which inhibits rethinking both our
process of congressional removal--maybe there are better methods, ones
that strike a better balance between thoughtful change and the status
quo--and exploring the possibilities of voter-recalls which did not
generate my initial challenge, though I can see how it might be read
that way. 
 
        It might be that Churchill's implicit axiom was correct that
we're stuck with comparative judgments about politics and
constitutionality alone. But I always felt that limiting discussion to
such judgments inhibits thinking hard about the possibilities of
revising and improving what now seems sacrosanct.
 
        At any rate, how bad does it have to get before challenging our
present constitutional structures for change becomes reasonable perhaps
even rationally required?
 
Bobby 
 
Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware

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