Jonathan Cohn has a post in The New Republic linking the recent bad eggs to the larger theme of the unitary executive, particularly the increased oversight that manifests itself in the Office of Management and Budget approving major agency rules.
This is not a story that begins with the administration of George W. Bush. It begins, instead, with the administration of Ronald Reagan. Convinced that excessive regulation was stifling American innovation and imposing unnecessary costs on the public, Reagan’s team changed the way government makes rules.
Prior to the 1980s, agencies like the FDA had authority to finalize regulations on their own. Reagan changed that, forcing agencies to submit all regulations to the Office of Management and Budget, which cast a more skeptical eye on anything that would require the government or business to spend more money. The regulatory process slowed down and, in many cases, the people in charge of it became more skittish.
People don’t tend to line up in two camps of OMB review approval vs disapproval. But in any event, the post is a nice read for administrative/policy fans.
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Currently, the top emailed article on nytimes.com is “Your Brain on Computers: Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime.”
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Senate Minority Leader Jon Kyl: “There is a constitutional provision in the 14th Amendment that has been interpreted to provide that, if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what.”
The first sentence of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
I’m working on a paper that quite heavily relies on the 14th Amendment’s opening line, and am thus interested in the immigration policy-driven constitutional discussion going on. Another big chunk of the paper is on Congress’ prerogative to identify and enforce constitutional rights, so my instinct is ordinarily to praise Congressional hearings on constitutional provisions, as Sen. McConnell is apparently pushing.
But, in this case let’s call a ridiculous spade a ridiculous spade. If the GOP Senators plan to stall about every vote, citing the deficit, it would seems we could save some resources by skipping hearings into unambiguous text and offering, instead, whatever citizenship-altering amendment these people have in mind.
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