Posted on 05/26/2006 4:33:22 AM PDT by AZRepublican
Whoa...you lost me after the second paragraph. You segued from federal crimes--like bribe-taking--into your beef about how Congress works. To answer your question simply, there are a number of laws enacted that favor one group or circumstance over another. As long as there are legislators passing laws, that's always going to be the case.
But this is nothing new. You could remove Hastert, but the next speaker or majority would do the same. Since Hastert's constituents are most likely benefitting from his being in office, they're going to keep him there. Hopefully, the non-constituents will benefit from his being there as well.
No, I'm more concerned with the bribe...
The AG for the state of Washington claims the separation of powers doctrine bard the prosecution of judges who commit crimes.
Ronnie Earle even had an indictment- but Debate Clause precedent wouldn'y even let him think of getting a warrant for his men to search through Delay's privileged papers nonetheless.
He certainly would have under this precedent though. With a (wink-wink) "filter team" of his "best" men.
The Founders were well aware of corruption in legislatures; but also of Executive and Judicial abuse of the Legislature- that was the well known reason Legislative Privilege was first established in the English Bill of Rights of 1689: “the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament”.
I think so too. :-)
After posting it and linking to it more than enough times, I finally decided to give it a thread of its own.
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