Hillary Ineligible? December 2nd, 2008
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is constitutionally ineligible to serve as Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
According to the Ineligibility Clause of the United States Constitution, no member of Congress can be appointed to an office that has benefited from a salary increase during the time that Senator or Representative served in Congress. A January 2008 Executive Order signed by President Bush during Hillary Clinton’s current Senate term increased the salary for Secretary of State, thereby rendering Senator Clinton ineligible for the position.
Specifically, Article I, section 6 of the U.S. Constitution provides “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time.” The provision is seen by most as designed by our Founding Fathers to protect against corruption. Read more...
And now we have this...
Congress Cuts a Salary, Helping Hillary Clinton
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has not even been confirmed as the new secretary of state. But Congress has already decided that she should get less than the person currently holding the job, Condoleezza Rice.
The move actually removes doubts about Mrs. Clinton’s ability to take the post. According to an obscure clause in the Constitution, known as the Emoluments clause, a member of Congress may not be appointed to a government position if the compensation rate for that position was increased during his or her term.
In 2006, the salary for cabinet posts was increased to $191,300 from $186,600. So late on Wednesday, Congress cut the pay for the secretary of state by about $4,700.
Yet the move does not satisfy the concerns of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that raised the Emoluments Clause issue last week. From the group’s standpoint, the mere fact that the salary was raised during Mrs. Clinton’s term makes her ineligible to run until her term expires in 2013, regardless of Wednesday’s Congressional action to bring it back down.
“We consider it an end-run around the Constitution,” said Tom Fitton, the president of the group, which has been a longtime foe of the Clintons. “If our lawyers determine that we are able to file a legal challenge, I suspect that we would."
Corruption:
noun
1. lack of integrity or honesty ...
2. in a state of progressive putrefaction...
3.moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"...
Syn: Putrescence; putrefaction; defilement; contamination; deprivation; debasement; adulteration; depravity; taint. Clinton, Hillary, Clinton, Bill, Obama, Barack...
You left one out...Blagojevich.
ReplyDeleteRef:"You left one out...Blagojevich."
ReplyDeleteSometimes during my editorial haste I do manage to suffer a bit from 'errors and ommissions'...
Blagojevich certainly could be defined as the noun above. But if I were to make a long story short, suffice it to say, item #2 fits him to a 'T'... "in a state of progressive putrefaction..."