Brett Kavanaugh: Presidents can ignore laws they think are unconstitutional

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2013 asserted that it's a "traditional exercise" of presidential power to ignore laws the White House views as unconstitutional, as he defended the controversial practice of signing statements prevalent in George W. Bush's White House.

The comments could put a renewed focus on Kavanaugh's time serving as White House staff secretary, who had a role in coordinating Bush's statements accompanying legislation he signed into law. Critics contend that the Bush White House abused the use of signing statements to ignore laws passed by Congress, though Bush and his allies said such statements were no different than the practices of other administrations.

Democrats have demanded full access to documents from Kavanaugh's tenure as staff secretary from 2003-2006 as part of his Supreme Court vetting process, citing in part his role over the Bush signing statements. But Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has rejected those demands, saying they are irrelevant to his nomination and a Democratic attempt to drag out the vetting process, which already includes hundreds of thousands of pages from other aspects of his career.

In 2013, Kavanaugh was speaking at Case Western Reserve Law School in Ohio when he was asked about signing statements, with the questioner noting that critics say that presidents can issue them to ignore provisions in laws they don't like.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/brett-kavanaugh-presidents-can-ignore-laws-they-think-are-unconstitutional/ar-BBLAeNf?li=BBnbcA1

This guy better not be confirmed.

[beachbum bob]

1. Should disqualify this person base on this opinion.

The president is sworn to uphold the constitution, and not decide what parts...the democrats should shutdown the senate until after midterm elections.

[madaboutharry]

2. Kavanaugh is a monarchist

He wants America to have Kings rather than Presidents.

[redstatebluegirl]

4. Only if the are from the right party.

[DFW]

3. Wow, would this apply to Democratic Presidents, too?

Don't bother to respond to that. We already know the answer.

[dlk]

5. Kavanaugh is Unfit to Be on the Supreme Court

He also appears to be unfit to be a member of the bar. Where did he get the crazy idea that a president could pick and choose which laws to uphold? This man is delusional!

[Beartracks]

11. That sums it up nicely. n/t

[lisa58]

6. ***********

Wrong answer....

[struggle4progress]

7. Constitution, Article 2, Section 3

... he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed ...

[dalton99a]

10. +1

[PoliticAverse]

8. They should ignore unconstitional laws - in fact have a duty to do so.

Does anyone seriously think that if Congress passed a clearly unconstitutional law like, say, one
that required rounding up people of a certain ethnic background and putting them in a concentration
camp for extermination that the President would be required to enforce that law?

Congress has a way to act if the President is not enforcing a constitional law - impeachment.

So a president could be impeached for, say, not enforcing the federal laws against marijuana.

[msongs]

13. the supreme court decides if a law is unconstituional not. it is not a prez decision nt

[PoliticAverse]

14. So you think a President would be obligated to round up and exterminate people...

if congress passed a law requiring that, until such time the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional?

[dflprincess]

17. Hopefully the president would veto such a law.

if Congress overrode the veto the president could direct the DOJ to try and get an injunction from a lower court to put the law on hold until the Supreme Court ruled on it's Constitutionality. (And if the president didn't you can bet the ACLU would be fighting it.)

If we had a Supreme Court that would find something that awful Constitutional I'd say the Republic was dead, all bets were off, and the Prez could do what ever s/he thought was right.

[smirkymonkey]

9. No way. He is a very dangerous man.

The last think we need is a SCJ who will give someone like Trump even more power than he already has.

[2naSalit]

12. {((((GONG!!))))}

[canetoad]

15. When I think about

Both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, I wonder what kind of people, what kind of judges, would even accept a nomination from someone under as much suspicion as tRump is. The nominations are tainted from the start.

[bitterross]

16. This isn't as wild as it sounds. Remember DOMA? Obama/Holder stopped defending it.

I haven't read all of the article yet, nor am I qualified to offer any real legal opinion.

I do remember, however, how happy many of us were when Obama and Holder stopped defending DOMA and didn't step in when state AG's wouldn't defend it.

Holder also let the enforcement of low-level drug crimes slide. Now, he did it for good reason, because those laws are blatantly racist and affect minorities disproportionately.