Outsourcing Legislation from WH to the House of Representatives

Fri Jan 29 14:42:42 PST 2010

It's polisci 101 that the President wears more than one hat. Con Law says
"Commander in Chief" and maybe "Executive in Chief" - but polisci 101 says
1. President as head of state; 2. Chief Executive; 3. Commander in chief,
chief diplomat; 4. Chief legislator; and 5. Chief of party. Um, yes,
Presidents have agendas. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind come those
phrases "New Deal," "Fair Deal," "Great Society," etc. I think that might
have something to do with the President actually taking charge of
legislation (especially in times of unified government; polisci calls
"divided government" - in the original post - when different parties control
the WH, S, and H).

Cantor's idea merely suggests that the Obama ideal point estimation is to
the right of the House ideal point - and by ceding control to the House on
health care that we wound up with a proposal not acceptable to the Senate
(with and ideal point to the right of the House and Obama because of the
super-majority requirement).

The polemics that this is "incredibly dumb" are just that.

******************************

Martin J. Sweet

Honors College

Florida Atlantic University

******************************

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Crowley, Donald
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 4:50 PM
To: Rosenthal, Lawrence; Steven Jamar
Cc: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Outsourcing Legislation from WH to the House of Representatives

It is hard to know what the public knows about the health care legislation.
The House bill which included a public option polled much better than the
version the Senate passed.  Thus Cantor's point about "outsourcing" the bill
to the "left wing" agenda of the House which is supposedly outside the
mainstream is pretty clearly untrue.  Larry seems to implicitly notice this
by acknowledging the main "deal cutting" occurred in the Senate and was an
attempt to get "centrist" Democrats on board.  These deals (necessary to
break the Republican filibuster) made the bill worse. The last time we were
here (1993) the Republican complaint was the White House tried to write the
legislation instead of letting Congress do it.  Now the complaint is that
Obama outsourced the legislation to the House.  I'm with Steve---Cantor is
just engaging in cynical posturing.

Don

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Rosenthal, Lawrence
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 12:58 PM
To: Steven Jamar
Cc: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: Outsourcing Legislation from WH to the House of Representatives

This strikes me as quite unfair criticism of Rep. Cantor.   In context, it
seems clear to me that his point is not that President Obama did something
improper by leaving the crafting of the health care legislation to Congress,
but that he took a course of action that was politically imprudent, and
which reflects poorly on the President's judgment.  Surely he is correct on
that point.  Congressional support for any major piece of legislation is
sure to collapse if it becomes sufficiently unpopular, and in that respect,
if the President chose to embrace health care reform as his own political
priority (as he did), it would have been politically prudent to ensure that
the bill did not become so laden with special interest provisions that it
would become a political liability.  That, of course, is precisely what
happened to the bill (although the deal-cutting actually seems to have been
much more problematic in the Senate than the House).  In retrospect, this
seems to me to be an entirely fair criticism of the President's approach.  

Larry Rosenthal

Chapman University School of Law 

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Steven Jamar
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 12:37 PM
Cc: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Outsourcing Legislation from WH to the House of Representatives

Paul,

I'm sure Cantor knows -- and that Darrell's point is correct -- Cantor is
engaging in cynical campaigning (is there any other kind?) to undermine
Obama.  If Cantor were Majority Whip, I'm sure we'd find him complaining
about Obama trying to usurp the proper constitutional function of the House
by being too involved in the legislation process.

It is just substantively nonsense, cynically done for political gain.

Of course the President has a huge role to play in legislation -- including
directing it.  And some Presidents (e.g., Bush II, Lyndon Johnson) play that
role much more vigorously than others (Eisenhower, Carter, even Reagan).

No.  He understands what he is saying, why he is saying it, and is clearly
doing what has become (and has been in the past) the norm for some
politicians -- make points, not policy.

Steve

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Paul Finkelman <paul.finkelman at yahoo.com>
wrote:

Last time I knew the job of the House of Representatives WAS to write
legislation.  I guess Cantor does not understand Article I of the US
Constitution.  It is partisan, but sadly, it is also incredibly dumb

----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208

518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)

paul.finkelman at albanylaw.edu

www.paulfinkelman.com

  _____  

From: "Miller, Darrell (mille2di)" <mille2di at ucmail.uc.edu>
To: "Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu" <Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Fri, January 29, 2010 2:43:38 PM
Subject: Outsourcing Legislation from WH to the House of Representatives

>From Politico, full link here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32192_Page2.html

Cantor criticized Obama for last year's "outsourcing of the legislative
activity from the White House to Nancy Pelosi here in this House," which he
said has resulted in "a bill shift and an agenda shift way to the left and
outside the mainstream of this country."

To me, this seems like a fairly gross exploitation of people's ignorance of
our system of divided government, and an indictment of partisan
gerrymandering which makes this kind of statement politically resonant. 

Darrell A.H. Miller 

Assistant Professor of Law

University of Cincinnati College of Law

PO Box 210040

Clifton Avenue & Calhoun Street

Cincinnati, OH 45221-0040
v: 513-556-0133
f: 513-556-1236
e:  <mailto:darrell.miller at uc.edu> darrell.miller at uc.edu 

faculty page:

http://www.law.uc.edu/faculty/profiles/miller.php

SSRN:  

 <http://ssrn.com/author=1107305> http://ssrn.com/author=1107305 

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-- 
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law
Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice
(IIPSJ) Inc.

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