quote:

Originally posted by Nina:

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
I don't understand what his next move might be. Any people more politically adept care to weigh in? What's going to happen on Feb 15th?

There are really only two possibilities.

1. Get something, anything, and declare victory. Say that's what he wanted all along. (The risk here is that the Ann Coulter base will go nuts.)

2. Declare a national emergency. The traditional Senate Republicans go nuts, there's a lawsuit, nothing gets built for a while, but he gets to say that he did what he said he'd do.

I don't see any other way out of the box.

The Ann Coulter base is already going nuts. I think he'll need to get something that he can declare as a win. On the other hand, his base seems to be willing to return to him, again and again.

I have come to believe that his base consists of people who either are evil, or are susceptible to hypnosis. They can be convinced that up is down ... or don’t care.

His problem this time is that he got nothing. Next time, he’ll get something (maybe), he will claim he won, and they will believe him.

OR he'll dig in his heels because the press has been so bad, and refuse to bend an inch.

He has *so* backed himself into a corner.

If he gives on DACA or on the wall, President Crazy Coulter and her ilk will crucify him.

If he shuts down the government again, he'll find himself in the same PR mess he did this time. I don't see how he can shift the blame to the Dems.

He should just take the short term hit and hope that it's far enough away from 2020 that his base will forgive and forget. Besides, what alternative do they have? (aside: I really wonder if he'll run in 2020. Two years of life with Nancy as Speaker might just do him in.)

Well, there is this one more alternative.

quote:

Well, there is this one more alternative.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think he'll go the emergency order route. It will be tied up in the courts for years and nothing will get done, but he can say to his base, "see, I took action".

It's the non-solution.

Right. I actually predicted he would go straight to emergency declaration. But I guess by waiting three weeks he can rebuff arguments that he declared an emergency to end the shutdown.

I think the house will vote to override, but I doubt the senate will go along.

I wonder if a court would issue a preliminary injunction to stop the building of the wall while it goes through the courts.

I mean, I don't know that there is any precedent for that, and it would be a big reach for a judge. Do the courts really want to be in the business of telling a president than an emergency is not an emergency?

I wonder what plaintiff has the strongest case for seeking equitable relief to justify an injunction.

It's an interesting question. Surely the house would have standing, and that would go to the supreme court pretty quickly one would assume. I don't know how the statute is written but if he has to make a case that its a real emergency that would be a heavy lift. But the statue is vague and the bar for declaring an emergency hasn't been very high in the past, I don't know how that would figure in the court's reasoning.


But there'd also be the many suits where he tried his 'military version of emminent domain'. Surely stays would be granted while they are adjudicated, and I wouldn't think he has much of a chance.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:


But there'd also be the many suits where he tried his 'military version of emminent domain'. Surely stays would be granted while they are adjudicated, and I wouldn't think he has much of a chance.

Why not? As far as I know, there are really only two questions, whether there's a public purpose and whether the landowner is paid just compensation.

I think the idea that there is no public purpose is laughable.

And just compensation isn't a question of whether, it's a question of how much.

And I don't think the House of Representatives could sue, right?

@Quirt:

Different standard from what I've read (remember, it's 'the military version'). SCOTUS didn't allow that when Truman tried to nationalize the steel mills during the Korean war. From what I've read, that's the relevant precedent

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
And I don't think the House of Representatives could sue, right?

They would have standing under the constitution, they have power of appropriation.

THere's recent case here, when Obama tried to spend money on Obamacare that wasn't appropriated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...resentatives_v._Azar

Of course there may well be other opinions out there, this is what I've run into reading/listening to folks that don't reflexively disagree with Trump (e.g. Richard Epstein, others)

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
@Quirt:

Different standard from what I've read (remember, it's 'the military version'). SCOTUS didn't allow that when Truman tried to nationalize the steel mills during the Korean war. From what I've read, that's the relevant precedent

I haven't re-read the case lately, but I don't think they were using eminent domain in that case, because there was no thought of paying the steel mills to buy them permanently, was there?

The wall's supposed to be a permanent taking.

I don’t know, again that’s Epstein’s take, who wrote a textbook called “Takings, Private Property, and Eminent Domain’ while a professor at Chicago.

That doesn’t mean he’s right, but he’s probably not wrong in some really obvious way.

Then again he was addressing what nobody-but-Trump calls “the military version of Eminent Domain”. I’m not really sure what the distinction is or if there even is one.

He was interviewed about it on the Hoover Institution’s Libertarian procast on an episode entitled ‘Emergency Powers and the Presidency’ if you’re interested.

I'll have to go back to the source material when I have time. However, this argument was made by the Solicitor General in the Supreme Court case:

quote:

He admitted that the Constitution did not specifically grant the president the power to seize private property. Nevertheless, Perlman maintained the president could legally do this in a national emergency under his executive power and powers as commander in chief of the military.

http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of...the-steel-mills.html

If someone says that the Constitution does not specifically grant the President the power to "seize" private property, they're talking about a seizing outside the context of the Fifth Amendment ... i.e., without just compensation.