If Judge Mukasey cannot say plainly that the president must obey a valid statute, he ought not to be the nation's next attorney general.
In his Oct. 23 Op-Ed article, "Lawbreaker in Chief," Prof. Jed Rubenfeld plucks a single phrase from Judge Michael B. Mukasey's testimony, imbues it with a meaning that is at odds with the rest of the testimony, and asserts that Judge Mukasey espouses a theory of unlimited presidential power whereby the president does not have to "obey a valid statute".
And in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court's recent decision on military commissions, the justices reaffirmed that the president must comply with a valid federal statute.
If one accepts the premise that from Marbury v. Madison through Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (the military tribunals case), the Supreme Court has ruled that "laws trump presidential authority, not the reverse" and "the President must comply with a valid federal statute," then a law is not Unconstitutional just because the President says it is.
Counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, joined by the office of the Governor, argued that the constitution did not require the holding of primary elections to fill vacancies, and that the statute "protected valid and compelling state interests in protecting the validity of the electoral process and limiting the term of a [governor-]appointed Senator".
Rather than rehash the contents of the book, Mr. Knapp rose and said: "The New York statute is valid.
The Court opinion's looming specter of inutterable horror — "[i]f §3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every State could give itself independent authority to prosecute federal registration violations" — seems to me not so horrible and even less looming.
The judge also found the state had valid reason to enact the statute, embracing medically dubious claims about when a fetus can begin to feel pain.
"The reasons behind the statute are as valid today as they were when the law was passed, and that is to create accountability for one's actions when one is in a crowd," said Daniel S. Connolly, a lawyer for the city.
"This is a very serious and unusual step to take but is necessary to ensure that the interests of the genuine candidates and voters are protected, and that the election can take place on May 3. "The nomination paper for Helena Torry was submitted shortly before the close of nominations on March 3 and contained all the information required by statute for a valid nomination.
If approved for circulation -- initiative statutes need 504,760 valid signatures to appear before voters, no small feat.
