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Let’s say congress passed a statute saying that it was illegal to practice Hinduism.
It is a statute but clearly isn’t law as it facially violates the Constitution.
And if a dem does it, the answer is it depends. If Congress passes a law saying “you can’t spend money to censor” and the Dem president clearly violates the statute and the first amendment to censor then I’d be upset.
But if they do something that has a pretty strong constitutional basis? No I won’t be upset.
Of course it's possible for Congress to pass a law that is unconstitutional, and it's even arguable that some laws have been obviously unconstitutional and would not survive a Supreme Court challenge. But I have never before heard the theory that nothing is an enforceable law until someone challenges it in the Supreme Court, and therefore the President can treat anything passed by Congress as merely their opinion. Will you be okay with Congress impeaching Trump if the Republicans get slaughtered in the mid-terms? Because that is historically what an unfriendly Congress does to a President who decides he can ignore laws- sorry, statutes- he doesn't like.
I'm also pretty skeptical that Trump has a sound basis for believing that a 60-year-old law is unconstitutional simply because it happens to be in the way of what he wants to do. If the Supreme Court decides it's not unconstitutional, what do you think Trump should do?
There are tons of statutes that are ignored and there are of course test cases to in fact test them.
And this again isn’t a trump position in adopting. The unitary executive is an august position.
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The Tenure of Office Law was declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS in 1926 in Myers v. United States, 59 years after the law was passed.
the unitary executive theory has been around a long time; if you believe in the unitary executive theory, which Trump has commented on for 8+ years, you necessarily believe the civil service law is unconstitutional
as these
comically trashaggressive District Court national injunctions and restraining orders and Judge behavior make their way up the system, we're getting closer and closer to the SCOTUS holding something like the unitary executive theory as constitutional law which multiple members (Gorsuch and Thomas) have signaled for yearswe've already crossed that bridge and burned it in 2019 and 2021, so if that's the threat we're already passed it and it's part of the world
if Democrats win big in the midterms, they will impeach DJT whether he abides by the unconstitutional Civil Service Reform Act or not
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