HUCKABEE NEEDS A SIXTH-GRADE CIVICS CLASS…. I realize Mike Huckabee wants to be president. I also realize that desire pushes Huckabee to say some pretty foolish things in order to impress his party’s far-right base.
But even with these considerations in mind, Huckabee’s approach to court rulings he doesn’t like is pretty out there.
“A president has certainly got to respect a ruling of the court, but if the ruling of a court is wrong, and it’s fundamentally wrong, and you have two branches of the government that determine that it’s wrong, then those other two branches supersede the one…. The two branches of government, legislative and executive, have every right to make it clear to the Supreme Court that their interpretation is wrong. And whether they do that by constitutional amendment to spell it out to the court, or by passage of further amplification of law, there are many means, I think, at hand to do that.”
Um, no.
Constitutional amendments are an option, I suppose, when elected officials have a problem with a Supreme Court ruling, but I sure would like to hear Huckabee’s definition of “supersede.”
While he’s at it, maybe Huckabee, the governor turned Fox News personality, could also elaborate on what it means for other branches of government to “further amplify” the law. How would that work, exactly? Congress passes legislation, a president signs it into law, and the courts find it unconstitutional. But if it’s a “fundamentally wrong” ruling, Huckabee thinks Congress and the White House can pursue “further amplification” to get what they want?
And who’s to decide which rulings are the “fundamentally wrong” ones?
Huckabee has already demonstrated, repeatedly, that economics and foreign policy aren’t his strong suits. I think we can add constitutional law to the list of issues he needs to work on before the next national campaign.
