Yeah, well, *I* support a constitutional amendment...
...to make our Presidents take a history and political science exam before being elected. Maybe it'd be a good idea for some reporters to do the same before they start reporting on politics, too.
Bush's statement that he'd support a constutitional amendment denying marriages to same-sex couples is totally meaningless. Bush doesn't and won't have a thing to do with the process of amending the Constitution, so his statement is irrelevant -- it's political pandering to the religious right, but nothing more.
Why it's being trumpeted in the press today is a bit beyond my ken, unless everyone who's reporting on this is woefully undereducated about the way our government works. Clearly, my supposition is not beyond the realm of possibility.
The important thing to understand here is that it's simply *not* that easy to amend the Constitution, and the American President has no formal role the amendment process. There are two basic ways the Constitution can be amended, and neither of them involve executive decree or whim in the slightest.
One method is for a bill to pass through the House and the Senate by a two-thirds majority. Then it goes on to the states for voting. This is how virtually every amendment to the Constitution has been passed since its inception.
The second method is this byzantine, circuitous route that's never been used in our nation's history. It involves two-thirds of state legislatures to convene for a Constitutional convention to make the amendment. Then the amendment must be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions.
Here's the important thing to understand: The President is welcome to make his opinion known. But his opinion is ultimately irrelevant to the process; He has no power to veto a Constitutional amendment, nor can he ratify one.
This is one of those "by the people, for the people" things that those geniuses who thought out our system of government did precisely to stop people like King George (W. Bush) from toppling the rule of law in favor of autocracy or monarchy, and God bless all of 'em for it.
Too bad the whole electoral college thing wasn't thought out a bit better.
Comments
"Here's the important thing to understand: The President is welcome to make his opinion known. But his opinion is ultimately irrelevant to the process..."
Or with this particular president, the president himself is irrelevant.
Posted by: lyssa | February 24, 2004 12:56 PM
He said it mainly because his ultra-conservative backers were threatening to abandon him if he didn't make a stronger stand against gay marriage. That's all.
Posted by: Alphax | February 24, 2004 06:58 PM
Both of these comments are good and true.
In addition, the whole Marriage Amendment bull is a red herring for this week's slew of bad news stories about the Bush League administration - Pentagon's investigation of fraud by Halliburton, the Secretary of Education calling the NEA a bunch of "terrorists", the nosedive in consumer confidence - and where ARE those pesky WMDs anyway?
Posted by: Capecoder | February 25, 2004 12:02 AM