I live in Florida's Congressional District 6, which means my Congressman is Republican Cliff Stearns.
In yesterday's St. Petersburg Times, it was reported that Stearns, joining with another Republican, Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville (the mastermind of this little diversion) and former presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas sent a letter to President Obama congratulating him on his Nobel Peace Prize....
...and advising him he must get permission from Congress in order to accept it.
Follow me below the fold for the latest bit of Republican lunacy.
Get our okay before that Nobel Peace Prize
That's what a trio including Rep. Brown-Waite tells Obama
So read the headline in Wednesday's Times. (Full disclosure: Although I read the Times regularly, and this story was at the bottom of the front page, I missed it somehow. My hometown paper, The Ocala Star-Banner, headlined it today, which is why I waited until now to write a diary about it.
The original story was by St. Pete Times staff writer Alex Leary, and started like this:
WASHINGTON -- While many people were wondering what President Barack Obama did to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite began researching another question: Can he even accept the award?
Yes, she concluded, but only if he asks for her permission. Well, her and the rest of the lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
So on Monday the Brooksville Republican sent a letter to Obama congratulating him, but requesting that he fulfill a "constitutional obligation to obtain Congress' consent."
If you're like me, you're probably wondering WTF right now. Where does Ms. Brown-Waite (along with my Congress critter Mr. Stearns and the ever-kooky Mr. Paul, get the idea that the president must ask permission from Congress to accept this prize?
Well, one day one of Brown-Waite's staffers was surfing the intertubes, and came across Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution, which reads, in part:
No person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state.
Now, before you get excited about the fact that someone in Brown-Waite's office has actually read the Constitution, be aware that this aide apparently came across this particular argument on "a blog" soon after the announcement that Obama had won the Peace Prize was made. So no, it's unlikely either Brown-Waite or her aide actually read the Constitution.
I mean, that much at least should be obvious.
Brown-Waite attempts to buttress her argument by telling the Times (and stating in the letter signed by her, Stearns and Paul) that when Theodore Roosevelt received the Peace Prize while serving as president in 1906, he "rightfully" complied in asking Congress for permission to donate the prize money to charity.
The Times, one of the few remaining journalistic enterprises in the country that actually practices journalism, did what any good journal would do -- they researched that claim. Their finding:
...news articles from the time say nothing about [Roosevelt] relying on the clause [Brown-Waite] references. Roosevelt intially wanted to set aside the $37,127 for an "Industrial Peace Committee" and Congress created a commission to receive the money, according to a story in the New York Times.
Nothing ever came of it so years later, Roosevelt asked that Congress direct the money toward war relief.
However, Brown-Waite insists that Congress should be involved since, by giving the $1.4 million prize to a tax-deductible charity, Obama could get a write-off of $500,000 on his taxes.
For his part, my Congressman, Mr. Stearns, claims he is concerned about the Peace Prize and other "gifts" unduly influencing U.S. policy.
"Let's say you had a nonprofit in the Mideast that gave him a large sum of money, would we want that?" Stearns said. "The president should be careful about accepting gifts while in office."
Yeah, right.
So what's the deal? Are Brown-Waite, Stearns and Paul right? Does the president really have to get permission from Congress to accept the Nobel Prize?
Again committing an act of actual journalism, the Times spoke to two legal scholars to get the answer.
Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School, said a quick review suggested there are several reasons to reject Brown-Waite's argument.
"First, the Nobel committee is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, but it appears to be a stretch to call the committee a 'foreign state,'" she said.
The Nobel Foundation is itself a private institution.
"Second, there are several other 'persons holding any office' in the United States who have won the Nobel and who, as far as I am aware, did not receive the consent of Congress before accepting the prize."
University of Florida constitutional law expert Joe Little had a shorter answer:
"It's a real stretch."
In a follow-up editorial published this morning, the Times hit the nail on the head as to the real motivation behind the letter from Brown-Waite, Stearns and Paul:
This has nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with another ham-handed partisan attempt to grab headlines and embarrass Obama.
Then they offered this bit of advice to Brown-Waite (and I would second this advice for my own Congressman, Mr. Stearns, and for Ron Paul as well:
The proper recommendation would be to suggest Brown-Waite concentrate on the real issues facing Congress and the country. The problem with that advice is that she is on the wrong side of pressing issues such as the economic recovery efforts, health care reform and climate change. So perhaps she can best serve Floridians by staying on the fringes of the national debate and sending the occasional letter to the White House, which the president can file in the appropriate receptacle.
Nailed it!