[Originally posted at Corrente.]
Can anyone tell, from her site, whether Hillary has a plan to restore Constitutional government? And, if so, what it is?
[UPDATE Please, anyone, just answer the question. There are two parts to the answer: (a) the plan; (b) a link to the plan on the Hillary site. Thanks.]
I figured the Clinton campaign site had to be the most authoritative source of answers to this question, so I went there and looked at what was on the record, starting with the Issues/Government Reform topic. There, I see a lot of sound, good government administrative ideas like:
- Banning Cabinet officials from lobbying a Hillary Clinton administration.
- Strengthening whistleblower protections.
- Creating a public service academy.
- Ending abuse of no-bid government contracts and posting all contracts online.
- Cutting 500,000 government contractors.
- Restoring the Office of Technology Assessment.
- Publishing budgets for every government agency.
- Implementing Results America Initiative to track government effectiveness.
- Tracking and eliminating corporate welfare.
- Expanding voting access and safeguarding voting machines.
But where can I find the plan for the restoration of Constitutional government on Hillary's site?
What I don't see, anywhere:
- An explicit rejection of Bush's theory of the unitary executive
- An explicit rejection of all Bush executive orders based the theory of the unitary executive
- Support for the rule of law, and a Dodd-like commitment to do whatever's needed to prevent the telcos from gaining retroactive immunity for warrantless surveillance
- Support for the Fourth Amendment, and in particular our right to be secure in our digital papers and effects
- Abolition of the separate, politically-driven parallel so-called court system set up under the MCA
- An explicit rejection of the idea that the President can declare citizens enemy combatants and hold them indefinitely without trial
- An explicit recognition that international treaties signed by the United States are the law of the land (for example, the Geneva Convention)
- An explicit rejection of torture
I'm sure others can come up with a more complete list of what it would take to restore Constitutional government, but this will do to go on with.
So, where can I find the plan for the restoration of Constitutional government on Hillary's site? (When I say "plan," I mean a detailed list of actions to take, like my proposed list above, or like Hillary's own list of detailed proposals for government reform, and on her campaign site, since I'm assuming, for the purposes of this post, that the campaign site is the most authoritative source for campaign positions.)
Then I looked at a speech, highlighted on the front page, that Hillary gave on government reform. And here I find a plan for government reform:
Today I want lay out a ten point agenda to do just that – an agenda for government reform. A plan to enhance accountability and transparency. To make government more efficient and effective for taxpayers. To restore competence and end the culture of cronyism. To replace secrecy and mystery with openness. A plan to make our government work for all Americans again. ...
And then she goes on to repeat, more or less, the bullet points listed under the Issues/Government Reform topic. She concludes:
It's time for a President who earns your trust and respect one day at a time. A President who never forgets that, as the great Granite stater, Senator Daniel Webster once said, "We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people."
Nice use of the AA slogan! All true, all good. But talking about government reform without talking about restoring Constitutional government is like talking about remodeling your house when the foundations are rotting away!
So, where can I find the ten point agenda for the restoration of Constitutional government on Hillary's site?
Then I moved on to the Strengthening Our Democracy topic, and there I find a plan for voting reform:
She has introduced the Count Every Vote Act to avoid repeating the problems of the past and ensure the integrity of our elections. Her bill:
- Provides a paper trail for every vote cast.
- Designates Election Day as a national holiday.
- Allows same-day registration.
- Minimizes long lines at the polls.
- Makes sure that impartial officials administer our elections.
- Allows the attorney general to bring suit against anyone using deceptive practices (like distributing flyers with incorrect information about voter eligibility) to keep voters from voting.
- Helps states invest in better voting technology.
Which, again, is all worthy (though a voting machine geek like Brad would take issue her proposal; what is needed is not a paper trail but a paper ballot. However, a fair voting system in and of itself is no guarantee of Constitutional government; a monarchy with periodic accountability moments in the form of plebiscites might well see its legitimacy enhanced with such a system, for example.
So, where can I find the bullet points for the restoration of Constitutional government on Hillary's site?
So I kept looking. I scanned headlines for the press releases and the archives. (Surely restoring Constitutional government merits a headline?) Nada.
Finally, I did a Google search on the site, since the site navigational tools didn't seem very helpful. And got some hits! Here's Hillary before ACORN in 2006:
You know I believe in our Constitution, and I believe in checks and balances, and I believe that we need accountable government. And we don't have any of that right now. We need new people in Congress....
Great. That's the plan?
Here's Hillary on privacy before the American Constitution Society in 2006:
Now I believe that the President – and I mean any President – must have the ability to pursue terrorists and defend our national security with the best technology at hand. But we have existing law that allows that – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or so-called FISA. We have judicial mechanisms in place that this Administration could have used to obtain authority for what it did; we have a system of Congressional oversight and review that this Administration could have used to obtain a legislative solution to these challenges.
Instead, they relied on questionable legal authority and bypassed our system of checks and balances. In the months since NSA’s activities have come to light, both the legislative branch and the judiciary have attempted to learn more about the Administration’s surveillance programs. In denying Congress and the courts any information, the Administration’s refrain has been "Trust us." They’ve used it to justify frustrating legislative oversight, denying the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility the clearances they needed to conduct an internal investigation, and just a few days ago we learned they are now invoking the State Secret Exception to shut down any judicial review of their conduct through assertion of that privilege. That’s unacceptable; their track record does not warrant our trust.
This has been the point of numerous decisions, not on this point exactly, going back several years.
And in Justice Douglas’ concurrence in the Katz warrantless wiretapping case in 1967, he said it very clearly and I think it applies today: "Neither the President nor the Attorney General is a magistrate. In matters where they believe national security may be involved they are not detached, disinterested, and neutral as a court or magistrate must be. Under the separation of powers created by the Constitution, the Executive Branch is not supposed to be neutral and disinterested. I cannot agree that where spies and saboteurs are involved adequate protection of Fourth Amendment rights is assured when the President and Attorney General assume both the position of adversary-and prosecutor and disinterested, neutral magistrate."
The answer to this delicate security dilemma is neither blank checks nor blanket opposition; it is to use the judicial and legislative mechanisms we have to build a consensus [Oh?] about what is necessary, what is legal, and what is effective.
That's the plan? Consensus?*
Hillary on Iran in 2007:
Our strongest asset remains the democracy that we are privileged to take part in as members of the Senate and as representatives of our constituents. Our democratic institutions, under our Constitution, balance one another and check against excesses and concentrations of power that help us wrestle with difficult challenges in an open and forthright way.
Great, but where's the plan? Do we not have an "excess and concentration" of executive power today?
Clinton on the campaign trail in Iowa:
Radio Iowa: Clintons Focus On Message Of Change
"Are you ready for change in America?" Clinton asked the crowd. "Are you ready for universal health care for every single man, woman and child?...Are you ready for a vice president who respects the constitution of the United States of America?"
Maybe a stemwinder isn't the place to give the plan, but could she at least mention that she has one?
Hillary on a march on the Justice department, November 2007:
"Today, thousands of men and women from across the country gathered to march on the Department of Justice to deliver an important message to the President - the Justice Department needs to get back to the business of protecting our civil rights, defending our Constitution and the rule of law, and after seven years of neglect, proving that its mission is the evenhanded and vigorous enforcement of our laws.
Great, but where's the plan?
Hillary before the NAACP, September 2007:
It breaks tradition because, for us, we want to believe that our government represents all of us, don't we? It's taken many years of struggle to get to that point. Most of us in this room tonight were not in our Constitution. It took a long time before we amended it to include, at least on paper, constitutional rights for us all. And to feel as though the clock is being turned back is unacceptable in our country.
It is indeed, and even those of us who were in the Constitution are now being written out of it. And there are a lot of great program proposals in that speech, but a plan to restore Constitutional government? Not there.
Finally, I looked at the campaign's new fact hub. Two attacks on Edwards--good ones, too--but nothing about her own plan to restore Constitutional government from Hillary.
You know, I'm getting a little concerned that Hillary doesn't even have a plan to restore Constitutional government. From a comment on a live-blog of the June debate by a supporter the Clinton site:
Please pass this to Hillary's advisers. I've been blogging over on Daily Kos where there is criticism of Hillary on her response to Sen. Edwards early in the debate. Edwards up front made a statement that the "war on terror" was a sham phrase ("bumper sticker") used as an excuse for warrantless surveillance etc., meaning abrogations of the Constitution and rule of law. Hillary missed an opportunity for a breakthrough "educational moment" (an antidote to an 'assault on reason,' as Mr. Gore might say) when she dismissed Edwards' statement statement and went in the direction of being from New York, 'we’re safer but not safe,' etc. There was an undercurrent she overrode a bit too quickly which is likely to disturb those who understand what Bush has been up to and what we're up against post-Bush in getting back our Constitution.
That was back in June. This is November. Where's Hillary's plan to restore Constitutional government?
If Hillary has such a plan, her site sure doesn't make it easy to find--correction from Hillary supporters welcome--and her average supporter doesn't even think it's important. I spent hours on a Kos thread trying to raise this issue, without result.
Hillary runs a terrific campaign. She's a fine speaker, very knowledgeable, very well organized, always on message, has a fine web operation with bloggers I respect involved, and while there are many, many, many well thought out and innovative plans on her site--all to be found with simple navigational tools--a plan to restore Constitutional government doesn't seem to appear anywhere on her site.
Not even a dog whistle to the base.
Why would that be?
NOTE * And when the 30% doesn't accept the consensus, and when the entire Bush administration works against it, because they'll all be arrested for felonies if FISA is ever enforced? And the telcos, if they're held accountable in the courts, would lose millions and millions of dollars? What price consensus then?
NOTE I'm not sure restoring Constitutional government has ever been on Hillary's to-do list. See this post from early 2006, when I saw Hillary speak at the Constitution Center in Philly.
TROLL PROPHYLACTIC Yes, where I excerpt a Hillary quote on the Constitution, I looked at the entire context for a plan to restore the Constitution. No joy.