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That's the role of the executive branch, and President Obama is the head of the executive branch. It's weird to see it phrased that way, but it's not incorrect.

anigbrowl 14y ago
Yes, but he can't just rewrite the law by making a speech, as the author suggests. He's charged with the faithful execution of the laws, not their interpretation. If you read court decisions where a law is criticized by a judge or justice as unjust or unfair (but not necessarily unconstitutional), they never say that prosecutors should stop bringing such cases to court; they say that changing the law will require Congress to act. To take a current example of the dichotomy, the Obama administration has filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking it to overturn DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), as it's the administration's belief that the law is unconstitutional - but in the meantime, the administration is still implementing DOMA as written, because until the SC rules against it (if they do) it remains the law of the land. If two married gay people file a joint tax return, the IRS will send it back with an apologetic letter and tell them they have to file separately and so on.
- crusso 14y ago
  Not sure if you pulled your example from the politifact article, which was the top Google hit on "enforcing doma", or not... but it also mentions specific examples of where DOMA is NOT enforced because the administration has decided it has more authority than is Constitutionally and legislatively prescribed. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/09/vern-buchanan/vern-buchanan-says-obama-will-no-longer-enforce/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/09/ver...
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    I hadn't read that. However, in the counter-examples given, which all involve immigration, the AG is using his explicit statutory discretion to halt or defer proceedings on individual cases.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "He's charged with the faithful execution of the laws, not their interpretation." In practice, though, the executive can pick and choose enforcement priorities. Case in point: the DEA ramped up the effort against medical marijuana in California after the Obama administration made a deal with the pharmaceutical lobby, to win support for the Affordable Care Act. Within two years, the Obama administration's DEA had raided more medical marijuana dispensaries than the previous administration had in all eight years. Virginia recently overturned its law that forbade unmarried opposite-sex couples from living together. Nobody had been prosecuted under that law in many years (at least not as far as anyone knows), and only one person had been threatened with prosecution. The police in Virginia certainly know that unmarried couples are living together and having sex with each other; they just have other laws they are busy enforcing. The idea that the law must be enforced without any exceptions or leniency is the sort of far-right, law-and-order thinking that has turned America into the world leader in imprisonment.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    Do please cite evidence for this claim about the Affordable Care Act. I've been a long-time advocate for MMJ and have lobbied for it in front of county lawmakers, and I don't find this very credible. Also, your claim implicitly assumes that the number of dispensaries was static, when it was anything but. Your misrepresenting my position on law enforcement; I pointed out a critical logical flaw in the OP, which is the idea that the rule of lenity applies to law enforcement. It is a specifically judicial concept.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "Do please cite evidence for this claim about the Affordable Care Act. I've been a long-time advocate for MMJ and have lobbied for it in front of county lawmakers, and I don't find this very credible" Is the combination of the administration's dealings with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying group, PhRMA, and the fact that during the same period of time that those deals were being made the administration became more aggressive on marijuana raids, count? https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html?pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-revea... http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/12/bummer/singlepage http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/12/bummer/singlepage Unfortunately, the extent of the administration's deal-making with the pharmaceutical lobby remains undisclosed. Why the public has not been given access to their emails is anyone's guess (I suspect most people would guess the same thing). Maybe in a few decades, when the full details of this administration's activities become public knowledge (assuming such things even happen), we can figure out if the simplest answer -- that the administration attacked marijuana in a quid-pro-quo with PhRMA -- is indeed the correct answer. "Also, your claim implicitly assumes that the number of dispensaries was static, when it was anything but." Are you actually claiming that nearly overnight, the number of medical marijuana dispensaries increased by more than a factor of four? That somehow, the number of suppliers in California simple increased by pure coincidence in 2009? This administration has been one of the most aggressively anti-drug-law-reform administrations in the history of the war on drugs. The President has publicly (and falsely) stated that it is up to Congress to legalize marijuana. He falsely claimed that he would suspend raids once he ejected Bush administration holdovers from top DEA positions, only to appoint Bush administration holdovers to those positions and increase the number of raids.

anigbrowl 14y ago

Yes, but he can't just rewrite the law by making a speech, as the author suggests. He's charged with the faithful execution of the laws, not their interpretation. If you read court decisions where a law is criticized by a judge or justice as unjust or unfair (but not necessarily unconstitutional), they never say that prosecutors should stop bringing such cases to court; they say that changing the law will require Congress to act. To take a current example of the dichotomy, the Obama administration has filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking it to overturn DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), as it's the administration's belief that the law is unconstitutional - but in the meantime, the administration is still implementing DOMA as written, because until the SC rules against it (if they do) it remains the law of the land. If two married gay people file a joint tax return, the IRS will send it back with an apologetic letter and tell them they have to file separately and so on.

crusso 14y ago
Not sure if you pulled your example from the politifact article, which was the top Google hit on "enforcing doma", or not... but it also mentions specific examples of where DOMA is NOT enforced because the administration has decided it has more authority than is Constitutionally and legislatively prescribed. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/09/vern-buchanan/vern-buchanan-says-obama-will-no-longer-enforce/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/09/ver...
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  I hadn't read that. However, in the counter-examples given, which all involve immigration, the AG is using his explicit statutory discretion to halt or defer proceedings on individual cases.
betterunix 14y ago
"He's charged with the faithful execution of the laws, not their interpretation." In practice, though, the executive can pick and choose enforcement priorities. Case in point: the DEA ramped up the effort against medical marijuana in California after the Obama administration made a deal with the pharmaceutical lobby, to win support for the Affordable Care Act. Within two years, the Obama administration's DEA had raided more medical marijuana dispensaries than the previous administration had in all eight years. Virginia recently overturned its law that forbade unmarried opposite-sex couples from living together. Nobody had been prosecuted under that law in many years (at least not as far as anyone knows), and only one person had been threatened with prosecution. The police in Virginia certainly know that unmarried couples are living together and having sex with each other; they just have other laws they are busy enforcing. The idea that the law must be enforced without any exceptions or leniency is the sort of far-right, law-and-order thinking that has turned America into the world leader in imprisonment.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  Do please cite evidence for this claim about the Affordable Care Act. I've been a long-time advocate for MMJ and have lobbied for it in front of county lawmakers, and I don't find this very credible. Also, your claim implicitly assumes that the number of dispensaries was static, when it was anything but. Your misrepresenting my position on law enforcement; I pointed out a critical logical flaw in the OP, which is the idea that the rule of lenity applies to law enforcement. It is a specifically judicial concept.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "Do please cite evidence for this claim about the Affordable Care Act. I've been a long-time advocate for MMJ and have lobbied for it in front of county lawmakers, and I don't find this very credible" Is the combination of the administration's dealings with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying group, PhRMA, and the fact that during the same period of time that those deals were being made the administration became more aggressive on marijuana raids, count? https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html?pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-revea... http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/12/bummer/singlepage http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/12/bummer/singlepage Unfortunately, the extent of the administration's deal-making with the pharmaceutical lobby remains undisclosed. Why the public has not been given access to their emails is anyone's guess (I suspect most people would guess the same thing). Maybe in a few decades, when the full details of this administration's activities become public knowledge (assuming such things even happen), we can figure out if the simplest answer -- that the administration attacked marijuana in a quid-pro-quo with PhRMA -- is indeed the correct answer. "Also, your claim implicitly assumes that the number of dispensaries was static, when it was anything but." Are you actually claiming that nearly overnight, the number of medical marijuana dispensaries increased by more than a factor of four? That somehow, the number of suppliers in California simple increased by pure coincidence in 2009? This administration has been one of the most aggressively anti-drug-law-reform administrations in the history of the war on drugs. The President has publicly (and falsely) stated that it is up to Congress to legalize marijuana. He falsely claimed that he would suspend raids once he ejected Bush administration holdovers from top DEA positions, only to appoint Bush administration holdovers to those positions and increase the number of raids.