Is it hearsay when the President says it in Public and is recorded?
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I remember something along the lines of hearsay coming up in some of the recent ACA cases before SCOTUS. My memory is a bit fuzzy but I seem to recall SCOTUS choosing to interpret the law rather than base their decision on what Senators and Representatives said about the law at the time it was being crafted.
Using legislative history to determine a statute’s or law’s meaning has positives and negatives, like all methods of interpretation.
Benefits of legislative history: The people who write the law are themselves telling you what they wanted to do and we should defer to their goals. What better way to interpret the law than to go back and read what the legislators themselves were saying about it. You can interpret a law based on what was going on historically at that time.
Problems with Legislative history: Actual legislative intent is pretty much unknowable because just because a politician says something, that doesn’t mean that he or she actually believes that or means what he or she is saying. Voting for something may not indicate actual support. Statements may be strategic and may not represent the actual beliefs of the speaker, but may be designed to coax others to vote the way the speaker wants. Additionally, not all legislators speak about their intent behind a law and a statement by one legislator doesn’t represent the views of others. Speculation as to the intent of the legislator can be unreliable since voting itself can be strategic. “I don’t really care about this issue, but I’ll vote for your law if you vote for mine.”
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Doesn’t the INA of 1965 override much of that provision in the US code, however?
FYI, you don’t need to limit your backup country choices to Italy. Since Italy is part of the EU, you could go just about anywhere you want in the EU. That’s how my sister was able to move to Ireland.
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#Brexit sucks ass!
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I’ve always been enamored with the scenery and climate of the Nordic countries. I wonder how far Italian citizenship goes in Norway or Sweden. I’ve got some reading to do. Given the past 11 days, sooner would be better than later.
Yeah, Yates basically did a slightly more flashy resignation in protest, an old American tradition that hasn’t gotten much use in the last century.
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@anon81580706 she was in a political position holding a seat for a few more days. Only kept on to sign national security letters. She risked nothing and based her arguments not on the law but on hearsay. If someone he nominates does this in the future then THAT will be a huge deal. Political appointee hold over from previous administration? Not so much.
@chaosof99 do you have a link that doesn’t take me to a default landing page? Do I need to turn off my ad blocker for that website to work?
It seems the site has changed since I last checked it. There was an article there before. Not sure what happened with it.
@anon81580706 yes. Both sides reacted poorly. However, Trump LOVES being the underdog. He derives power from having foes (real or imagined) up against him. If Yates had written a clearly worded dissent pointing out to how the EO was unconstitutional or illegal then she would have held the high ground. By basing her decision on political grounds and hearsay she ends up looking like someone who acted based on Dem vs Repub reasons rather than a person acting based on a question of law.
The Trump administration is pushing an Us vs Them narrative. The actions of Yates help his narrative. Trump is not a politician. What has worked in the past does not work on him. He’s a political Nilbog, if you get the reference.
Some awful subreddit I assume. Or else a misspelled email.
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https://lawfareblog.com/quick-thoughts-sally-yates-unpersuasive-statement for one. It displays a good analysis of where she went wrong in her statement.
From the same site: https://lawfareblog.com/does-presidents-immigration-order-violate-rule-against-ideological-exclusion gives a good legal breakdown for why the EO is likely unconstitutional.
If she had stuck to legal reasons and left out the hearsay arguments she would be on solid ground. By including those references she allowed herself to fall into a political trap that allows her stand to be portrayed as partisan rather than principled.
I completely understand HMTKsteve’s line of argument, people who work in government point out the same stuff, in fact what she should have done was lodged her complaint and resigned immediately. (that’s the usual way)
However as someone who wanted to make an activist point and go down in a blaze of glory, she did what she had to do.
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@anon81580706 no, I paint the responses as equally wrong. Yates was wrong to make her statement public and political and the Whitehouse was wrong to make its statement on her firing hyperbolic and inflammatory. Period, full stop.
The discussion on the EO itself is a different matter. Its rollout was a complete clusterfuck. Its impact on green card holders never should have happened. The impact on visa holders in transit and refugee families already approved for relocation is a tragedy. Whether it will have its stated effect is dubious. Whether the President has the authority to do what is in the Executive Order will be up to the judicial branch to decide as I have read legal pieces that both defend and refute the order based on different readings of the same statute.
This is petty. Yates did nothing wrong. The White House’s response was frighteningly phrased but not really wrong. Resignation in protest is something I’ve been wanting to be brought back for some time, and Yates has brought it back, if through a slightly different execution. I don’t understand this argument.
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Norway isn’t a member of the EU, but Sweden is. Italian citizenship should at least guarantee you the right to work in Sweden.
“‘We took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues,’ said Senate Finance Committee chair Orrin Hatch.”
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I want to punch this man very very hard.
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