#constitutional

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it. ↗

— Mark Davis

#because #cannot #census #constitution #constitutional

On February 7, 2.2 million Haitians went to the polls and exercised their constitutional right to select a leader. They went by foot, by tap tap and other forms of transportation, traveling hours and standing in line for almost a day to get to their polling places. ↗

— Mark Foley

#constitutional #constitutional right #day #exercised #february

It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That’s why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public. Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. And when the American people are in the dark, they can’t make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It’s Civics 101. And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#law #national-security #secrets #surveillance #change

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself. ↗

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#assumed #constitutional #curb #decline #efforts

You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that. ↗

— Frank Hague

#american #communist #constitutional #constitutional rights #every

We are losing our living systems, social systems, cultural systems, governing systems, stability, and our constitutional health, and we're surrendering it all at the same time. ↗

— Paul Hawken

#cultural #governing #health #living #losing

I didn't say 'former president,' I said 'president,' and I have the constitutional rights according to the constitution, including immunity from prosecution. ↗

— Saddam Hussein

#constitution #constitutional #constitutional rights #former #i

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it. ↗

— Steve King

#constitutional #constitutional republic #crafted #democracy #failures

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget. ↗

— John Kitzhaber

#balanced budget #budget #constitutional #operate #requirement

This election is a critical step in that overall plan - transforming the Iraqi government into a fully constitutional one, able to secure its own borders and ensure the safety of its citizens. ↗

— John M. McHugh

#borders #citizens #constitutional #critical #election