President Obama, a man who swore on the Bible to faithfully execute the laws of this land, said, “There’s classified, and then there’s classified” in response to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
The United States has reached a point where the letter of the law no longer means anything to the chief executive.
Through his comments, Obama relies on the mystical theory of legislative intent.
He admits Clinton technically broke the law, but didn’t violate the intent behind the law.
The belief that Obama, FBI Director James Comey or anyone else can divine some vaporous intent out of the Byzantine process of contemporary Congressional lawmaking is absurd.
Hundred-page laws — written years ago by armies of faceless staffers and aides, voted on by hundreds of Congressmen and Senators in separate sessions and put through rounds of reconciliation and interpreted through litigation — cannot be claimed to remain faithful to their drafter’s intent, if they even resemble it.
The modern lawmaking process involves thousands of people with thousands of different ideas and opinions.
Anyone who claims to be able to divine the intent out of this process should be met with skepticism, especially when their proclaimed ability supports the innocence of their political allies.
Legislative intent has been a misguided philosophy since its conception.
It started as a tool for courts to make the legislative process efficient and avoid uncomfortable outcomes from poorly-worded laws.
At this point legislative intent is simply a politically expedient way of achieving policy and personal goals.
Consider Obamacare: if Obama was a true believer in following the intent behind a bill, his actions towards his crown jewel are illegal.
Consider how the President has routinely delayed, rescheduled and ignored the deadlines written in the statutory language of Obamacare.
It is hard to argue that Congress’ legislative intent was for employers to provide health insurance to their workers starting in 2015, because the bill Congress wrote says employers must provide this by 2014.
The administration simply decided it was politically expedient to push this requirement back to 2015, Congress be damned.
The Obama years are replete with this unilateral political opportunism despite the intent of Congress.
It’s difficult to believe that after all of these years of pen-and-phone-ism Obama has seen the light and will from now on defer to Congress.
One wonders if this distinction between “confidential, and confidential” would have occurred had Donald Trump or Ted Cruz threatened national security with their emails.
Because of its ease of abuse and lack of objective criteria of examination, the theory of legislative intent should be cast aside.
A literal interpretation of all laws is absolutely required if America is to remain a nation of laws.
Uncomfortable consequences arising from a literal interpretation of laws is an argument for more clearly worded laws, not unilateral discretion on the part of the executive branch.
Claiming to find original intent in a law that serves your political needs is simply too tempting for petty tyrants like Obama.
zaochamb@indiana.edu
