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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-check-could-house-sue-president-refusing-carry-101605570--politics.html

Regardless of politics, this question is interesting, and the answer could make for quite a change in Federal Government functioning.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
http://news.yahoo.com/constitution-check-could-house-sue-president-refusing-carry-101605570--politics.html
Regardless of politics, this question is interesting, and the answer could make for quite a change in Federal Government functioning.

I'm not sure if it would be "quite a change," and I don't know of anything that would prohibit Congress from suing the President. But by the same token, would the Supreme Court be under obligation to entertain or hear such a lawsuit?
I find it interesting that a common complaint is about judges legislating from the bench, but now, it's almost like they have to become janitors to clean up all the mess of the other two branches.
Without making it a political issue, it's been my observation that every President has his own particular style, and while there are often disputes between the Executive and Legislative branches, they generally get resolved over time.
A lawsuit seems like a novel approach, but it's probably going to end up with the top leaders from both parties having to actually sit down and work out a deal - as they've done in the past and will do in the future. That's probably what the Court would tell them to do before wasting its time with a lawsuit. They'd tell them to settle out of court first, wouldn't they?

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It is perhaps tempting to think, as the commentary by columnist George Will suggests, that this is a problem that ought to be handed over to the courts: get them involved to enforce the lines of demarcation between what Congress does and what presidents are allowed to do.

However, there is, and has long been, a constitutional barrier to the courts acting as an arbiter of inter-branch disputes between Congress and the White House. Its origin is in the Constitution’s Article III, and its meaning comes from the way the courts have interpreted the limitation spelled out there. “The judicial power,” it says, “shall extend to all cases…and controversies.” A “case or controversy” means, in this context, a live lawsuit, with those on each side having something genuinely in dispute, and that something is capable of being decided by the use of rules of law.

The courts, in short, will not decide mere abstract legal controversies, and they will not hand out advisory opinions on how the laws or the Constitution are to be interpreted. Courts have a number of ways of showing respect for those restrictions on their power, and one of them is to refuse to decide what is called a “political question.” In this sense, “political” does not mean a partisan issue; it means an issue that the courts find has to be decided, if it is decided at all, only by the “political” branches: Congress and the Executive Branch.

Time after time, when members of Congress have sued in the courts, because the Executive Branch did something that they believe frustrated the will of Congress, they have been met at the door of the courthouse with a polite refusal to let them in. Failing to get their way in the skirmishing with the White House does not give members of Congress a right to take their grievance into court. Frustration does not make a real lawsuit, according to this notion.

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But by the same token, would the Supreme Court be under obligation to entertain or hear such a lawsuit?

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

I'm not sure they can just change the rules, though. Amending the Constitution is pretty fucking difficult (as it should be). And, getting 2/3 majority of both chambers is pretty fucking difficult, too.

You want to make it about this House and this President.

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

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But by the same token, would the Supreme Court be under obligation to entertain or hear such a lawsuit?

SCOTUS has always ruled against legislators (paraphrased, of course), 'You don't like it? Make a law, read your constitution.' by their very refusal to become involved. (separation of powers and all that rot)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art3frag19_user.html

(see section on standing of members of congress)