A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability Bill To Prevent Further Abuses of Presidential Power

[Better Believe It]

A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability
By John Nichols
The Nation
May 8, 2009

....this personality-defined approach to our battered system of checks and balances is a throwback to the days of powerful monarchies, when the people of a country waited for the day when a bad king was replaced by a good king. .... to rely on one man, even a good man, to renew the system of checks and balances is as naive as it is dysfunctional.

"Over the past several years, serious questions have been raised about the conduct of high ranking Bush/Cheney Administration officials in relation to some of the most basic elements of our democracy: respect for the rule of law, the principle of checks and balances, and the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights," argues Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, a key member of the House Judiciary Committee. "We must restore Americans' faith that in a democracy, we follow the rule of law and that nobody – even the President and Vice President of the United States – is above the law."

To that end, Baldwin has introduced the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2009 (H.Res. 417), which calls on President Obama to reject and reverse the illegal actions of the Bush-Cheney Administration and to work with Congress to restore a proper balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

"President Obama has already begun the work of reaffirming American values of justice and freedom. I commend him for his orders to close the detention facility at Guantanamo and prohibit illegal and immoral interrogation techniques," argues Baldwin.

But, she adds, " President Obama's efforts to renew America must also include restoring executive branch accountability. We had an administration that spied on Americans, outed a covert intelligence agent, suspended habeas corpus, held people without charges and without access to counsel, and used torture and rendition. This measure lists steps President Obama can take to proactively prevent any further abuses of executive branch power and restore the public's faith in our government."

Specifically, Baldwin's legislation, the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2009 calls on President Obama to:

1. Affirm our nation's commitment to uphold the Constitution;

2. Fully investigate Bush/Cheney administration officials' alleged crimes and hold them accountable for any illegal acts;

3. Hold accountable Bush/Cheney Administration officials who showed or show contempt for the legal duty to comply with Congressional subpoenas; disclosed the identity of any covert intelligence agent; pursued politically-motivated prosecutions;

4. Ensure that any Bush/Cheney administration official guilty of a war crime is prosecuted under the War Crimes Act and the Anti-Torture Act;

5. Affirm that it is the sole legal right of Congress to declare war; Criminalize lying to Congress and the American public about the reasons for going to war;

6. Restore the writ of habeas corpus as an essential principle of our democracy;

7. Ensure that torture and rendition are uniformly prohibited under United States law;

8. Responsibly close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp; Ensure that Americans can bring claims against their government;

9. Immediately take affirmative steps to protect all Bush/Cheney Administration documents;

10. Publicly review potential abuses of the presidential pardon process; and

11. Further reform the use of presidential signing statements

-------------------------------------------------

Here's a link to a video of Congresswomen Baldwin explaining the legislation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwI49AT590o

Here's the link to the text of the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2009:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.RES.417:

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/433922/a_democrat_calls_for_executive_accountability



http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.RES.417:

[Thrill]

1. Democrats all of a sudden can get tough now

After they let Bush run wild for 8 yrs. This goes for Obey too

[ClassWarrior]

3. So presidential accountability is the wrong thing to do?

This is an opportunity to begin to take back our nation. Let's take advantage of it instead of whining and stomping our feet.

NGU.

[snowdays]

8. Most progressives thought it was a grand idea when

Bush was in the Oval office.

But now..........plump!!

[Thrill]

9. No nothing wrong with it, Just pointing out the facts.

.

[snowdays]

6. Its the Wisconsin tradition. Russ Feingold will go along with this also. I am

glad they are speaking up.

[salguine]

2. it's the right thing to do. Which is why it'll never happen.

[snowdays]

12. you may be right on that. very sad.

[Uzybone]

4. I wonder if this bill will even get 100 votes

where was this type of backbone when Bush was running roughshod? That said, I hope she is successful with this. We should also get a Congressional accountability bill. To ensure they do their jobs the next time we have a tyrant in the white house.

[cascadiance]

10. It's important to get critters on record! So we can know who to support in the primaries in 2010!

We need to have a good measuring stick of who works for us and who works for the elites! This would be a good bill to look at for this...

Some more things we should contact her to add to this bill if it doesn't have it already.

1) Some of the reforms that Representative Nadler was trying to get passed in another bill to reform State Secrets Privilege usage, to prevent the administration from using it to dismiss cases completely and avoid transparency in civil cases (which is THE public's way of trying to hold the administration accountable for abuses). It's too easy today for an administration to just pull the plug on such cases with the State Secrets privilege which Bush has been doing for so many years, and now even Obama seems to be using too. It should ONLY be used to prevent or control presentation of certain evidence in a trial that might jeopardizes security after internal review, not to dismiss cases completely before anyone can really review whether a coverup or true defending of classified information is the reason for its usage.

I'd also like some form of "no-confidence" referendum voting option for the public to engage in, so that we don't have ONLY the ballot box every two years (or four or six years in the case of other government officials) to actually try to hold them accountable.

There should be means for a majority (or perhaps even just a supermajority) to say that something's severely wrong with our government that demands some form of re-election or other form of consequences that will keep those in power from abusing it too much in between elections and trying to prevent and limit people's choices during elections when they have their only opportunity to hold them accountable.

But she already has my support for 2010 for introducing such a bill!

[snowdays]

5. Tammy Baldwin has always stood WITH the people.

[snowdays]

7. a big REC

[Wednesdays]

11. K&R

:kick: