Recognition Procedure Act of 2015 (Tabled)

[Blair]

Okay, I should have commented on this earlier but this is an absolutely unwise piece of legislation. I'll put it into talking points to make it clearer for Senators

1.) Overeach-Firstly it's making the mistake of taking a controversial political issue (south America) and using it to bind the President's actions. The legality of such move, along with its use is another matter (For anyone interested look at the 1973 War Powers Act, and how nearly every President since has abused it) If you don't like South American diplomatic then pass a measure (as I did as Speaker when we had TNF running amok) don't try and take it the extreme of stripping the President of his last ounce of power.

2.) Presidential Power-On this note, it's the fundamental problem of our game that the President has absolutely no power. The main responsibility of a President is responding to events (Katrina, ISIS, Hurricane Sandy, School shootings etc) It's extremely hard to do that even in a highly advanced sim so we already in a bad place. This law strips the President of a right that he already has, and gives more and more powers to the Senate. What's the point in having a President if we just leave him to sign bills, and most likely overturn his veto since 99% of legislation passed here get's passed 10-0, and the odd bill gets 9-0. If we strip the Presidency down to the bone over a single issue then we're harming the game. Honestly after this what powers will the President have?

3. Democratic Mandate- we also remember that President Bore was elected not just once but twice. Twice he was given a democratic mandate by the people of Atlasia. The Senate isn't the only elected body

4.)Constitutionality- I'd also argue that whilst we don't have to pay attention to the US constitution in all cases, we do have to pay attention to precedent. The US constitution doesn't have a specific mention for executive orders but look at this....

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Executive Power is what this is exactly for, if you're going to deny that the President doesn't have the power to issue executive orders then you're going to have to repeal the 13 other ones that have been issued-including the one that reinstated my citizenship. Declaring that this bill is set up to 'fix a hole' in the system hides point 1-this is a bill motivated by political, not constitutional grounds.

The President has a constitutional right to use his executive power to open relations. I urge all Senators to vote against this legislation, or at least revise it because frankly you can't strip the President of a power granted to him by the constitution 

[Blair]

I'm going to break this up, because there's several claims here that are well colourful

So, you are supporting giving the President unlimited powers to change the setup of the game? Because that is what his executive order is about.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that the President has the power to act as given in the constitution. Do you agree that the President has a constitutional right to issue executive orders?

How does the executive order change the setup of the game? Like in a practical sense, it's a broad sweep to claim it 'changes the set up of the game'

That's one. Second, the President can exercises his powers of issuing decrees, but with the boundaries of his legal mandate. It is the Senate that makes law and there is no law allowing bore to undertake such an action. You can't just create powers by wide interpretation of the "executive power". That is a tantamount for an imperial Presidency and rule by decrees, which would be utterly undemocratic and unconstitutional.

It's within the boundary of his mandate. Obama on Cuba, Truman on Israel the historical precedent is clear. This power comes directly from the constitution, so he doesn't need a law to establish this precedent. As said above in my post the power is clearly granted to the President...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/12/cuba-as-the-next-constitutional-fight-between-congress-obama/

You're arguments about an 'imperial presidency' make it out as if the President has any power-you're stripping him of the last remaining power that he has. It's beyond parody, and it's the exactly same argument that people make about executive orders that they don't like. Frankly this is an argument we can have another day-you can't strip the President of his constitutional powers through a bill in the Senate even if you do think he's 'acting in an imperial manner'

Third, there is a little thing called "check and balances". The Senate doesn't have absolute powers in the realm of legislating, but the President doesn't have absolute powers in the realm of executing.

I know there's checks and balances, but the President simply does not have to put this measure to the Senate for approval. He can choose to give the Senate a vote on the issue, the Senate can vote a disapproval measure (as the GOP plan with Iran) but the Senate has no constitutional right to vote on whether Atlasia opens relations-that's a job for the senate.

Finally, you are talking about bore's mandate. We have a mandate too and I'd say even greater at the moment, because, unlike him, we are not neglecting our duties. And we are not going to be sidelined.

Irrelevant. The performance of a President does not limit his constitutional powers, unless Bore has done something impeachable.

Senators, what we're seeing here is a muddled bill, that is trying to fix too many problems with a broad brush. It's the classic piece of legislation that's influenced by external political events, and thus is off low quality

[Blair]

You can't make up powers that are not entrusted to you. If anything's unconstitutional, that would be it.

Again, for the 5th time Bore is granted the powers to be the Executive of Atlasia, which includes diplomatic relations. This is literally the main power of a President. There's a reason that constitutions are vague-it's to allow Presidents to actually carry out there actions. So if the Senate passed this law they're effectively saying that all executive orders are non-existent right?

Senators the arguments presented against this bill are all over the place, I've set out how in fact the Presidents actions are constitutional and stripping the President of these powers through a simple bill is unconstitutional, it doesn't matter if we're going to have a convention in a couple of days-we can't pass a law that is as bad as this is.